Police violence probed after Amsterdam pro-Palestinian protest

AMSTERDAM: Dutch police said on Thursday (Nov 14) that they have opened an inquiry into alleged police brutality during and after a banned pro-Palestinian protest in Amsterdam in which 281 demonstrators were detained.
Social media footage showed riot police shouting at protesters and hitting them with batons after they were released from a bus on the outskirts of the Dutch capital following Wednesday night’s protest.
Several hundred demonstrators, dressed in Palestinian scarfs and chanting slogans, gathered on the city’s famous Dam Square despite a ban following last week’s attacks on Israeli football fans.
The city did grant an exemption for a protest on Wednesday, but on the condition that it take place at the city’s Westergast terrain, outside of the centre.
“Videos are circulating on social media showing members of the Mobile Unit (riot police) acting against protesters who have just been removed from a bus,” police said in a statement.
“These protesters were transported to this location after they were previously arrested on Dam Square for violating the emergency ordinance,” police said.
“The exact reason for the Mobile Unit’s action in this specific video fragment is being investigated,” police said, without specifying which footage they were referring to.
AFP reporters at the protest saw police dragging demonstrators to waiting buses, with some putting up heavy resistance.
The demonstration came almost a week after the attacks on Maccabi Tel Aviv fans after a football match with local club Ajax when Israeli fans were chased and beaten up by men on scooters.
Five Maccabi fans were briefly hospitalised in what Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof called an incident of “unadulterated anti-Semitism” after the attacks were sparked by calls on social media to single out Jews.
The attacks also sparked outrage in many Western capitals.
But Amsterdam authorities also reported incidents involving Maccabi fans before the match who were chanting anti-Arab slogans and burning a Palestinian flag.
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.