On the first of October, the law against squatting in the Netherlands became effective. The squatters did what the always did, they protested.
A fairly large crowd of mainly Amsterdam residents took the streets on that friday evening, starting of quietly from the ‘Spui’ square in the centre of the city. From there the demonstration went to the Dam square to central station and then back through the spuistraat.
In the spuistraat the demonstration changed from a walk around the block into a squatting action. A fitting political statement. A crowd of over 500 people stood in front of the empty building while a few of them gained entrance.
The cops clearly not happy with this unforeseen action tried to mingle into the crowd to get closer to the building. After a short while the sound wagon alerted the protesters and the cops were pushed out of the demonstration after which they retreated.
The squatters lowered a banner with the text “mede mogelijkgemaakt door het kraakverbod”, roughly translated as “made possible by the antisquattinglaw”, a play on words on a previously often used support banner for the squatters. This was followed by music and a generally good atmosphere.
After some time of partying and barricading of the squat the demonstration decided to move on. People where asked to follow the front towards the already nearby endpoint on the ‘spui’ square where food would be served and people could go home quietly.
The crowd tried to continue in the same pace and with a good feeling of succes towards the square but where stopped short by a line of police. The police then started to smash into the demonstrators with batons as can be seen here: Video.
At the same time in the back as parts of the crowd started to panic, police on horseback started to rush in at full speed on the crowds, waving sticks everywhere. chaos, fear and anger ensued. The demonstrators, most of them not prepared for so much violence could not go anywhere. Some protesters started with throwing stones to keep the cops away, which was only partially successful. Eventually the cops let protestors get out through a very small alley where they where forced through with more violence. If you didn’t go fast enough, you got to deal with sticks, people in the neighbourhood asking for questions got beaten as an answer. In the alley the squatters got an advantage and the cops where stopped for a moment.
The squatters where then slowly pushed over the moats, the police using large quantities of teargas and sticks, the squatters fighting back with bricks, bikes and burning baricades of trash.
As the fire-truck approached most squatters had disappeared and only small groups of bystanders where left. Around the corners of the riots, tourists where drinking beers and wondering about the strange smells in the air. In small hubs of people bystanders, and some of the protesters looked from a distance towards the burning bridge. Some returned to the spuistraat where most cops had left and people from the neighbourhood where discussing the evening. There where people agreeing on how they didn’t understand the squatting law, and statements from the major earlier in the week to evict everything as soon as possible. Others where discussing sometimes quite aggressively about the use of violence and the destruction of property. There was one thing nobody seemed to disagree on though, this was war.
In total that evening about 11 people got arrested, among which some minors. An unknown amount of people got injured, at least one got his/her food scrambled by a riotvan and at least one cop got hit in the head. Probably a lot more where hurt.
Some more interesting footage:
Gallery:
