Peaceful students cornered and beaten by riot police

Today Robert and I went to the demonstration in the Hague against Rutte's plans for education (click here for why we were demonstrating). On the way back to the train station from the Malieveld, students passed by the Ministry of Education. Students started chanting in front of it "Oprutte" (a pun on 'oprotten' which means 'go away'). No one in the group seemed to be posing a threat to the police or to the building. The riot police cornered the group against a fence and started using their clubs to beat students, brought out their dogs and chased students and used horses to corner students where they were clubbed some more.

The police brutality I saw today was extremely disturbing. I saw a student, on the ground, lying in the fetal position, being beaten by two or more policemen. I saw police with clubs raised above their head, threatening the students.

This is how it started, near the Ministry of Education building: We were simply standing on the street, near the police line, when the police decided to all of the sudden charge our group. There had not been any audible order to disperse, nor was their any threat posed by the students in the crowd we were standing in, yet the police pushed us back and Robert got hit on the back of his head. He couldn't see who hit him, since it came from behind, but the last person to have been standing behind him had been a policeman. Robert had turned and had started walking back in the direction the police were pushing the crowd when he got hit.


Later, when the students were corned up against a fence, a policemen with club raised, forced his way into the group and split it in two. He shoved the people to his left away from the larger group. Robert happened to be in that group. I tried to stay with him but was pushed back by the cops. Seeing the police using batons to pound the group Robert had been pushed into, I screamed out for him and told the policemen standing near me that the police were using disproportionate force on the other group and asked them how they could do that to students who were not doing anything. I kept saying "we are just students," "we are not being violent." They became angry with me and then someone from the crowd of students I was in pulled me back away from the police, I guess to prevent the police from hitting me.


The police forced our group back into the fence. They were raising their clubs and screaming at us to go back even further. We were explaining that we had no where left to go. Where did they want us to go?! We were cornered. At that point, one of the students pushed through the fence and the way was open to go into a large construction site. I did not want to go in there. I was trying to get back to the train station, but the police forced us to go in. Three dogs were brought in to the construction site, straining the leashes they were being held on. I had no idea where to go. It seemed stupid to go further away from the station so I tried to go back toward it. The police did not allow me to and directed me instead toward the other end of the construction site. This is when I saw at least one student, one the ground, in the fetal position being surrounded by police who were beating the student with a club. I felt disgust toward the police doing that, and fear. Click here for another picture portraying what happened.

On the other end of the construction site, I called Robert with my cell phone and we managed to find each other. Luckily he was physically ok. The shock of seeing fellow students being beaten has not fully sunk in yet.

On an interesting side note: the representatives from the (I believe) Abvakabo FNV union, appeared to be aiding the police in their "order keeping" activities. In the picture to the right, you see the blue-clad reps, enforcing the cops' orders. It was very odd to see the union reinforcing the police.