Dutch police arrest pro-Palestinian protesters

Dutch police arrested pro-Palestinian demonstrators in Amsterdam this Sunday despite a ban on gatherings in the city, after violence three days ago on the sidelines of a match between Ajax Amsterdam and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Police in riot gear intervened as demonstrators chanted slogans and held up signs in Dam Square in the center of the city, AFP noted.

These arrests come following the confirmation by Dutch justice of the ban, requested by the city’s mayor, of a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Amsterdam. During the night from Thursday to Friday, supporters of the Israeli football club Maccabi Tel-Aviv were violently attacked by groups of individuals in the streets of Amsterdam.

Request to overturn ban on demonstrations rejected

The violence sparked outrage around the world, with US President Joe Biden calling it violent “anti-Semites” et “contemptible”. Five Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters were briefly hospitalized. Around sixty people were arrested. “The mayor rightly decided that there would be a ban on demonstrations this weekend in the city”the Amsterdam court announced on X, adding that a request to overturn the ban had been “rejected”.

Dutch activist Frank van der Linde wanted to demonstrate at Dam Square against the “genocide in Gaza, but also because (the) right to demonstrate has been withdrawn”he said, quoted by the Dutch national agency ANP.