In Amsterdam, police used force against student protesters

Pro-Palestinian protesters and police clashed in Amsterdam on Tuesday. A day earlier, at the University of Amsterdam, public order forces violently dispersed a camp of pro-Palestinian activists. About it reported Reuters agency.

City police used a bulldozer to clear a barricade early Tuesday morning and detained 170 people in the clashes. By the evening of the same day, four detainees remained in police stations.

University faculty and staff, outraged by the police response, called for another protest Tuesday afternoon.
“Students and staff describe the use of pepper spray, police batons, and police dogs against demonstrators. Excessive violence has resulted in injuries among protesters,” said a statement from the group calling itself Dutch Scholars for Palestine. “We firmly and unequivocally insist on the right of students and academics to participate in protests. We condemn the fact that the administration of the University of Amsterdam allows violence instead of fulfilling the justified demands of students,” the authors of the statement insist.

Outgoing education minister Robbert Dijkgraaf said universities were a place for dialogue and debate and he was sad to see police had to intervene.

According to the observations of Reuters journalists, student protests in Europe against the war and contacts with Israeli universities are inferior in scope to similar protests in the United States.