THE HAGUE, The Netherlands – Groups of youths confronted police in Dutch towns and cities on Monday night by defying the coronavirus evening clock and throwing fireworks. Police in the port city of Rotterdam used a water cannon and tear gas to disperse a crowd of rioters.
Police and local media are having problems in the capital, Amsterdam, where at least eight people were arrested, the central city of Amersfoort, where a car was turned on its side, and other towns before and after the evening from 21:00 to 04:30, reported. start.
It was the second night of unrest in towns and cities in the Netherlands that initially grew out of calls to protest the country’s difficult exclusion, but degenerated into vandalism by crowds whipped up by messages circulating on social media.
Police in Rotterdam said young people took to the streets and sought a confrontation with police. ‘Riot officers tried to break up the violence and made a number of arrests before firing tear gas. Police have warned people to stay away from the area. The national broadcaster NOS showed video of the police using a water cannon and reported that some shops had been looted.
In the southern city of Geleen, police tweeted that young people were throwing fireworks in the city center. Riot police, protesters accused in The Hague.
Dutch media have called on social media for further violent protests, even as the country struggles to contain new coronavirus infections, hospitalizations and deaths.
Police in the southern city of Goes and the North Holland province said they had detained people because they allegedly used social media to cause riots.
“This is unacceptable,” Prime Minister Mark Rutte said earlier on Monday about riots on Sunday. “It has nothing to do with protest, it’s criminal violence and that’s how we will deal with it.”
The worst hit Sunday was the southern city of Eindhoven, where police clashed with hundreds of rioters who burned a car, threw stones and fireworks at officers, smashed windows and looted a supermarket at its train station.
“My city is crying, and so am I,” Eindhoven Mayor John Jorritsma told reporters in an emotional, impromptu news conference on Sunday night. He called the rioters “the scum of the earth” and added: “I am afraid we are heading for a civil war if we continue on this path.”
Police in Amsterdam have arrested 190 people during a riot on Sunday, removing hundreds of protesters by truck.
The riots coincided with the first weekend of a new national coronavirus evening clock, but mayors stressed that the violence is not the work of the citizens concerned about their civil liberties.
“These demonstrations are being hijacked by people who only want one thing and that is rioting,” Hubert Bruls, mayor of the city of Nijmegen and leader of a group of local security organizations, told the news program Op1.
Nijmegen was one of a number of towns and cities that issued emergency regulations and gave the police extra powers to keep people away from certain places amid reports of possible riots there. At least one store in Nijmegen was shown on Dutch television as a precautionary measure.
Bruls, who chaired a meeting of security officials on Monday, said despite the violence, he did not plead for further restrictions on protests.
“You must be very reluctant to restrict the right to protest,” he said, noting that the riot took place Sunday during protest rallies already banned by local authorities.
Police in Eindhoven said on Monday they had detained 62 suspects and launched a large-scale investigation to identify and arrest more. One woman who was not involved in the riots in Eindhoven was injured by a police horse.
Locals went to the riot scene Monday morning to help with the cleanup.
On Sunday, rioters threw stones at the windows of a hospital in the eastern city of Enschede. On Saturday night, young people in the fishing village of Urk burned down a coronavirus test facility. Police in the southern province of Limburg said military police were sent to two cities as reinforcements.
The Netherlands has seen more than 13,600 confirmed virus deaths in the pandemic.