By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
AMSTERDAM (Worthy News) – Dutch police ended a pro-Palestine protest on the campus of the University of Amsterdam (UvA) and detained some 125 people in scenes resembling a warzone, officials said Tuesday.
The crackdown began Monday after Jewish organizations and others expressed concerns about the protests at several Dutch universities as Jewish students were reportedly intimidated and attacked.
After a tense standoff, riot police moved in early Tuesday to clear the protest camp on campus to maintain order, authorities said.
Police reported halfway through the night that there was unrest on Roeterseiland Campus of UvA, a former Amsterdam island where the tents were located.
“It is restless on Roeterseiland. Protesters use violence against the police. We are present in large numbers,” police warned citizens on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
However, “the tough police deployment is necessary to restore order. We also see the images [of the riots] on social media. We understand that this can sometimes look intense,” police added in comments monitored by Worthy News.
A live stream from Amsterdam city television channel AT5 showed fireworks being thrown. Demonstrators also tried to stop a riot police attempt to remove barricades on the site, witnesses said.
TENT CITY
The demonstration started Monday when protesters set up tents on campus.
They demanded, among other things, that all Amsterdam universities “sever their ties with Israel.” The protesters blocked two Amsterdam bridges and an entrance to the campus with pallets and other items.
Yet, Amsterdam police complained that the protest led to an unsafe situation, “partly due to the barricades that prevented emergency services from entering the site. In the event of an emergency, the activists themselves could possibly become stuck there.”
The atmosphere changed around 8:30 PM local time Monday when some ten men sought the confrontation with the pro-Palestinian demonstrators, witnesses said.
The men allegedly also beat demonstrators and used torches and fireworks.
While they were chased off the site by the demonstrators, police said there were also “en masse” stones were removed from the ground, apparently to use against security forces.
The UvA announced that it would press charges against the demonstrators if they actually spent the night on the site, something hundreds intended to do.
US INSPIRATION
Pro-Palestinian protests have already taken place at universities in the United States in recent weeks.
Police arrested nearly 300 people during the eviction of Columbia University in New York, where the mayor condemned relaxing the U.S. flag with a pro-Palestine banner.
Fighting also broke out at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) after pro-Israel counter-protesters allegedly tried to cross the barricades set up by pro-Palestinian students.
The UvA, where Tuesday’s riots occurred, claims to belong to Europe’s top universities.
With over 40,000 students, 6,000 staff members, and 3,000 PhDs, the UvA says they “are a hub of academic research and education.”
The UvA, founded in 1632 by municipal authorities, is the fourth-oldest academic institution in the Netherlands still in operation.
Copyright 1999-2024 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
Latest News from Worthy News
A group of 150 Baptist Christians in Mexico have been pressured by the government to sign an agreement that would allow officials to forcibly displace them from their communities on account of their faith and refusal to engage in local religious practices to which they do not adhere, Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) reports.
A new study on faith in the United Kingdom shows that faith is of greater value and significance to Britain’s “Generation Z” (those aged between 18-24) young adults than it is to older generations.
Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz on Saturday issued Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with an ultimatum, asserting that he will remove his centrist National Unity party from the government and return to the opposition unless the PM commits to an agreed-upon plan to resolve the Gaza conflict by June 8, the Time of Israel (TOI) reports.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor’s office announced on Monday that it had requested arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders for alleged war crimes related to the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has died in a helicopter crash alongside foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Iranian state media confirmed Monday.
Slovakia’s populist prime minister Robert Fico spent Pentecost Sunday still in hospital, four days after he was shot multiple times in an assassination attempt, but was given “a positive prognosis” that he would survive.
A small aircraft crashed in Greater Jakarta, killing all three people on board but narrowly avoiding more victims in Indonesia’s most densely populated metropolitan area of over 32 million, authorities said.