The Hague, Netherlands (AP) – Politicians and local leaders on Monday condemned protesters who clashed with police in about 10 cities in the Netherlands the day before, on the second night of a coronavirus curfew.
“It is unacceptable,” said Prime Minister Mark Rutte. “This has nothing to do with protest, this is criminal violence and that is how we are going to deal.”
The worst victim was Eindhoven, where police clashed with hundreds of protesters who set fire to a car, threw stones and fireworks at police officers, smashed windows and ransacked a supermarket at the city’s southern railway station.
“My city is crying, and so am I,” Eindhoven Mayor John Jorritsma told the media on Sunday night. At an emotionally impromptu press conference, he called the protesters “the scum of the earth” and added “I fear that if we continue on this path, we will be on the way to civil war”.
The disturbances coincided with the first weekend of the new national coronavirus from 9 pm to 4:30 am, but mayors emphasized that the violence was not the work of citizens concerned with their civil liberties.
“These demonstrations are being hijacked by people who want only one thing: to revolt,” Hubert Bruls, the mayor of the city of Nijmegen and leader of a group of local security organizations, told the Op1 news on Sunday night.
Amsterdam police arrested 190 people amid unrest in a prohibited demonstration on Sunday, while Eindhoven police detained at least 55. A woman who was not involved in the unrest in Eindhoven was injured.
In the eastern city of Enschede, rebels threw stones at the windows of a hospital; on Saturday night, young people from the fishing village of Urk set fire to a coronavirus test facility. Police in the southern province of Limburg said military police had been sent as backup to two cities.
“There is absolutely no excuse,” Overseas Development Minister Sigrid Kaag told Dutch television. “This is violence and I hope the police will track all of these people and there will be heavy punishments.”