THE ANTI-PROTEST BUSES

“This is what they want to create, they want to create fear, they want to create terror because then if you break the law they will hurt you.

It is a method of oppression, that is, in the sense that they oppress you like this, they tell you, do you want to do this? You get beaten. Do you think that this idea of the State, of the system, is wrong? You get beaten.”

A young activist studying in Amsterdam told Wallstone Dream about his experience at the Pro Palestine demonstration on November 10, 2024 in the Dutch capital.

The demonstration was reportedly banned due to clashes that occurred during the football match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv on the night between Thursday 7 and Friday 8 November: following threatening behavior by Israeli fans who chanted anti-Palestinian chants and tore down Palestinian flags, there were beatings and brawls. The media spoke of violence that the Dutch authorities called anti-Semitic. To keep things calm, the city's mayor has decided to ban demonstrations for three days.

On Sunday, November 10, young people and women filled the streets to demonstrate their dissent to the massacre that is taking place in Palestine, to say no to war. And the police reaction was strong. “They actually beat you, they are super violent,” says the young protester.

The police began to surround the people in the square and arrested them or put as many of them on buses as possible. The police escorted the protesters to points far from Amsterdam and unloaded them from the buses in the middle of nowhere. The boy talks about the concern and mutual support that there was on the bus he was put on since it was not clear what was going to happen.

It is interesting to note how in the media, in the world, a violent reaction by the authorities towards people who have not respected the rules is justified, embellished and obscured with the focus on formalities such as the transgression of the demonstrators to the violation to protest, in this case for peace, at the moment in which the protest takes on a meaning of danger, of questioning sovereignty.

In the same week as Donald Trump's American elections, a clash occurs between authoritarian force and the sentiment of the popular voice.

Will they ban Palestinian flags from upcoming soccer matches around the world?

“There’s the police that puts you in line and scares you and the people who don’t go are more scared and instead of having something to say fuck this thing is not right, they say fuck I don’t want to be beaten too and so they stay there. Instead you have to say fuck, it’s not right that if you protest they beat you.

We should be twice as many in the square next time.”