During National Remembrance Day on Dam Square, the police made four arrests, Amsterdam police reported on Saturday evening. Three of them were reportedly arrested because they wanted to draw attention to the political situation in Uganda during the commemoration. The silence was not disturbed.
The first arrest concerned a 53-year-old man from Amstelveen who was arrested when he wanted to unfold a banner, the police reported. Shortly afterwards, two more people were arrested, a man and a woman, both of Ugandan nationality. According to the police, they “presumably belong to the man with the banner”. The arrests were made before the moment of silence, so the two minutes were not disrupted.
In a statement, Willem Jebbink, the lawyer for the three, said that they are still in custody. According to him, they want to point out that the Netherlands provides financial support to Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni. Given this fact, the demonstrators find it hypocritical that “the Dutch king and prime minister pretend during the commemoration that a genocide such as in the Second World War could never occur again.”
Shortly after the moment of silence, another arrest was made. That involved a 24-year-old boy from Nijmegen. He allegedly made statements via his livestream on TikTok that “raised the suspicion that he might cause a disruption,” the police wrote in a statement. The statements were reported to the police via 112. The boy is still in custody, a spokesperson told NU.nl.
Earlier on Saturday there was another arrest in connection with sedition. A 41-year-old man is said to have made inflammatory statements about Remembrance Day via social media. After interrogation he was released on Saturday evening.
