Dutch police detain pro-Palestinian protesters at banned demo

Dutch police detained dozens of pro-Palestinian protesters Wednesday in Amsterdam, after they again defied a demonstration ban put in place after violence against Israeli football supporters last week.

The protesters, who were wearing scarfs and chanting slogans, staged a demonstration in Amsterdam’s central Dam Square and were taken to waiting vehicles, AFP correspondents saw.

The demonstration comes as the Netherlands is still dealing with the political fallout from last week’s violence in Amsterdam when fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv were assaulted by men on scooters in several parts of the capital.

Five Maccabi fans were briefly hospitalised after being beaten up following a match with the local Ajax team last Thursday, in what Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof termed an incident of “unadulterated anti-Semitism”.

The latest protests followed a similar demonstration on Sunday.

On Wednesday evening the protesters were taken to waiting vehicles, some of them heavily resisting.

Several hundred protesters gathered at the Dam Square earlier in the evening, despite a ban on protests announced by the city’s mayor last week.

The ban, which followed the attacks after a match between Maccabi and Ajax last week is in place until noon this Thursday.

After the match, groups of men on scooters engaged in “hit-and-run” attacks on Maccabi fans in areas of the city.

Police said the attackers were mobilised by calls on social media to target Jewish people.

Amsterdam’s mayor Femke Halsema on Tuesday called the violence surrounding the game a “poisonous cocktail” of anti-Semitism and hooliganism.

Events ahead of last Thursday’s match heightened tensions, including anti-Arab chants by Maccabi fans, who also set fire to a Palestinian flag on the city’s central square and vandalised a taxi.

After the match, reports emerged of social media calls to attack Jews, Amsterdam police said.

The violence took place against the backdrop of an increasingly polarised Europe, with heightened tensions following a rise in anti-Semitic, anti-Israeli and Islamophobic attacks since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

AFP