HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) – On Monday, politicians and local leaders condemned riot police who clashed with police in about ten cities in the Netherlands the day before, the second night of a coronavirus curfew.
“It’s unacceptable,” Prime Minister Mark Rutte said. “This has nothing to do with the protest, it’s about criminal violence and that’s how we’ll treat it.”
The worst hit was Eindhoven, where police clashed with hundreds of riots that set fire to a car, threw rocks and fireworks at officers, smashed windows and looted a supermarket at the city’s railway station. south.
“My city is crying and so am I,” Eindhoven Mayor John Jorritsma told the media on Sunday night. In an emotional impromptu press conference, he described the riot police as “the scum of the earth” and added, “I’m afraid that if we continue down this path, we are on the path to civil war.”
The riots coincided with the first weekend of the new national coronavirus from 9pm to 4.30pm, but the mayors stressed that the violence was not the work of citizens concerned about their civil liberties.
“These demonstrations are being hijacked by people who only want one thing and that is revolting,” Op1 news program Hubert Bruls, mayor of Nijmegen and leader of a group of organizations, said Sunday night. local security.
Amsterdam police arrested 190 people amid riots in a banned demonstration on Sunday, while Eindhoven police arrested at least 55 people. A woman who did not take part in the riots in Eindhoven was injured.
In the eastern town of Enschede, riot police threw rocks at the windows of a hospital; on Saturday night, youths from the fishing village of Urk set fire to a coronavirus testing facility. Police in the southern province of Limburg said military police were sent as reinforcements to two cities.
“There is no excuse,” Overseas Development Minister Sigrid Kaag told Dutch television. “This is violence and I hope the police track down all these people and there are strong punishments.”