Study confirms police used force against protesters

Pro-Palestine protesters occupied the courtyard of the University Library in the city centre on May 7 and the university building at Drift 25 a day later. Both occupations were ended by the police. Although the police claimed that the evening had been peaceful, activists said that the police used disproportionate force against them. Students were reportedly beaten with batons and two were squeezed so hard they fainted. 

Activists, lecturers and students' parents were among those who criticised the Executive Board for deploying the police. A large group of lecturers in International Law and Human Rights also stated that sending in the riot police was unnecessary and disproportionate.

Open source investigation
“This has led to questions about the university's role, the deployment of the police, and the incidents that allegedly occurred,” UU wrote in the summer. The Executive Board therefore commissioned the Utrecht Global Justice Investigations Lab to conduct an independent investigation into the occupations of May 7 and 8. The research lab reconstructed the events of May 7, 9 and 9 using public sources. Two students and Associate Professor Giancarlo Fiorella worked on the research. In addition to his work at the research lab, Fiorella works four days a week at the open-source investigation platform Bellingcat.

The researchers reviewed media reports and social media posts from the police, students, and faculty. In addition, the two student researchers reviewed the university’s surveillance footage, which was used to retrospectively verify whether the timeline, created using open sources, was complete and accurate. The researchers examined the actions of protesters, the university administration, the city government, and the police. None of the people present at the protests were identified.

According to the head of the Global Justice Investigations Lab, Brianne McGonigle Leyh, it is typical for open-source research to make a factual timeline when there are conflicting stories. “We try to show with facts what happened and when. The goal here is not to analyse these events or draw a conclusion from the research.”

The Global Justice Investigation Lab is a new course that students could follow for the first time last year. Its method is similar to those used by the research collective Bellingcat, which gained fame thanks to several sensational revelations. Researchers from the platform showed who was involved in the downing of the MH17 flight, for example. They also reconstructed the run-up to the Turkish coup attempt in 2016.

In the course, students are connected with a non-governmental organisation (NGO) that conducts open-source research into human rights violations and environmental damage. They are trained by Bellingcat researchers, learning things like determining the geographical location of an online image based on an IP address ("geolocalising"). They also learn to create a timeline of events and track aircraft using satellite images. Last year, a group of students investigated attacks against journalists during demonstrations for Amnesty International, for example.

Chronological timeline
The lab has drawn up a detailed timeline using social media images and news reports. They have collected videos showing what happened every few minutes. The researchers only describe what can be seen in the images and do not draw any conclusions.

The images show that the police used violence against demonstrators on several occasions. On May 8 (when the building at Drift 25 was occupied), the police used pepper spray and beat demonstrators with shields and batons. Protesters were also arrested forcibly. The police officers resorted to violence after demonstrators blocked Wittevrouwenstraat looking to prevent buses with detainees from being taken away through that street.

The report links each event to the public source that was used to describe the scene. This article only refers to the report written by the Global Justice Investigations Lab, not to the sources used. The scenes in which the police resorted to violence are described below, as well as the events that preceded the violence.

The timeline according to the research report
Pro-Palestine demonstrators set up tents in the library's courtyard on the afternoon of May 7. The first police officers can be seen between 8:30 pm and 11:00 pm. At 10:45 pm, the chair of the Executive Board, Anton Pijpers, addresses the demonstrators from the library's bicycle shed, asking them to leave the square. According to reports from RTV Utrecht, approximately sixty demonstrators left the square and fifty remained in the courtyard.

At 11:00 pm, there is “a brief confrontation between the demonstrators and the police on opposite sides of the entrance gate to the courtyard,” write the researchers from the Global Justice Investigations Lab. Images show the police trying to force access to the courtyard. The gate is closed with a lock and a group of demonstrators tries to stop the police officers. "Approximately two seconds into this video, a police officer can be heard saying 'Afstand houden, anders ga ik pepperspray gebruiken' ('Keep your distance, or else I will use pepper spray'). The same officer then says, 'Laat mij even, jongens' (roughly, 'Give me a minute, guys'), and then proceeds to deploy what appears to be an aerosol irritant against a protester. The officer then deploys the aerosol irritant a second time. Two protesters at the gate who were standing directly opposite the officer can be seen turning their faces away from the spray abruptly. These can then be heard groaning and coughing in response."

Another video, taken simultaneously by someone on the other side of the gate, standing behind the police officers, shows the officers trying to pry open the gate lock and hitting the gate with their batons. Starting at approximately 0:27 seconds in this video, three officers — one of them the same described in the previous paragraph — can be seen deploying what seems to be pepper spray. One of the officers deploys the irritant intermittently for approximately ten seconds before swinging his baton through the gate, likely to force protesters on the other side to back away from it. The officers then succeed at removing the lock from the gate.

Between 12:24 am and 12:34 am, the police remove the protesters from the courtyard and put them on buses. Several videos show protesters being dragged across the ground by the police to a U-OV bus, while other demonstrators walk with the police.

Photo: DUB

Occupation of Drift 25
The next day, May 8, a group of demonstrators gathers on Dom Square to show support for the demonstrators who were arrested the night before. Around 6:00 pm, the group goes to Drift and enters the university building at Drift 25. That's the building next to the library's main entrance.

At 9:30 pm, Anton Pijpers arrives and talks to demonstrators in the doorway. The protesters are asked to leave before 10:00 pm, but some choose to stay. At 11:40 pm, Pijpers announces with a megaphone that he is requisitioning the building. He then states that the building must be empty by 12:05 am. Again, some demonstrators leave the building, while others stay.

A video shared on Instagram at 01:28 shows the view down the hallway of the Drift 25 building’s front doorway. The video shows a group of police officers in riot gear breaking through a barricade that previously blocked that door. The police officers can be seen climbing through the barricade and then begin the process of dismantling it while the protesters chant.

In one video, “a person is seen being pulled out by their head and neck by several officers. The crowd then erupts in yelling over the treatment.” The report also states: “University CCTV footage shows the building nearly empty at 1:25 am, after officers remove the last five or six protesters through the back door.”

Protesters block Wittevrouwenstraat
In an Instagram post by Encampment UU and Utrecht4Palestine, protesters are called upon to asking protesters to move to the other side of Wittevrouwenstraat, to block the street and prevent the bus with protesters from the Drift 25 building from leaving. A journalist reports on X that a group of protesters is walking east to the end of Wittevrouwenstraat, refusing to move aside. The police are using pepper spray and an image shows protesters washing their faces after being pepper sprayed.

“Another video, shared on Instagram at 02:06 am, shows the police line advancing down Wittevrouwenstraat towards the small area before the Wittevrouwenbrug by the Lucasbolwerk intersection. The videos show some of the protesters linking arms. The police respond by shoving the protesters with their shields. At least one officer can be seen occasionally hitting protesters with their baton, directing the strikes towards their torsos and legs. An officer speaks into a microphone: '…Will proceed to use force…'"

Arrests
“A video on X shows the police arresting a protester. The man being arrested is on the ground and being handcuffed. The people arresting him are police officers in plain clothes. One of the officers is wearing a keffiyeh and another appears to have a Palestinian flag around his neck. This suggests that these are undercover officers.”

A photo from RTL Nieuws shows a person being arrested by police officers. The person can be seen grimacing in pain as they are arrested. The person’s face and hair are wet, “possibly from pepper spray or another means to remove the pepper spray”.

A compilation video from RTL Nieuws also shows a protester trying to get out of a U-OV bus and shouting: “(unintelligible)…I need help!...(unintelligible)”. Two police officers push the person backwards, causing him to fall to the ground. The officers then lift him with force. Another video on X shows the same incident, presumably moments after the protester is lifted off the ground by police. “The same protester is visible on a U-OV bus, shouting at the two officers and pushing against them. This protester is then thrown back against the bus' interior. The person recovers and the bus leaves after two officers board the bus.”

Photo: James Huang

Analysing the timeline
According to Global Justice Investigations Lab Director Brianne McGonigle, the timeline is “a first step.” She hopes it will be used by the university community to discuss the topic more deeply. “I see the timeline of events as the first step. I’m hoping that others will pick up the report and analyse it from their own perspective. It’s visible that this happens, and what does that mean for students or from the police perspective? I hope that the report will be used to carry on further dialogues about the protests on a university campus.”

“Investigations like this only give snippets of what others are putting out there that can be verified. In that sense, it would be more complete if they were complemented with other investigative processes. The report is only one small bit of what I would hope in a larger process. If other researchers or students want to carry it forward and do interviews, I think that would be really important.”

"All protests are meant to be a bit unsettling and disruptive. When protests happen on university campus, then the university is a perfect setting to talk about what’s underlying those protests. There’s a reason there are protests. It should be encouraged to have open spaces where people feel free to say why they are protesting."

One-sided picture
On behalf of the police, the municipality and the Public Prosecution Service, a spokesperson for the police describes the report as "one-sided" and not containing any "new information". The spokesperson says: "Although there are no inaccuracies in the report, the research provides a one-sided picture as it is an open-source investigation. It gives an overview of how the outside world has perceived the situation. The researchers base their report on news reports and descriptions of social media messages, but messages from demonstrators are always thrown into the world with a specific intention. The messages from the police have not been included in the report as we cannot share our images for privacy reasons."

The spokesperson adds that the police stand behind their actions. “All use of force by the police is evaluated. When it comes to these occupations, the use of force was assessed as proportionate. We already explained this in May and June and the questions from the municipal council about this were dealt with extensively.” The municipality is working on an evaluation in which it will talk with people involved to investigate how they experienced the events. This investigation is still in its preparatory phase, according to a spokesperson for the municipality of Utrecht.

Rector Henk Kummeling stated in a written response: “It is good that there is now an overview of the events that happened in early May because there were and are many stories about them. Thanks to this report, we now have more insight into the actual course of events. Based on an initial reading of the report, we can say that, although not all events were known to the Executive Board, there are no major surprises. But that does not mean there is nothing to learn from it, which is why we are going to share the report with our advisory and co-determination bodies (deans and the University Council, for example) so we can discuss it and investigate which lessons and attention points emerge from it.”

Privacy
The researchers from the Global Justice Investigations Lab dealt with pictures that depicted people, which means they were working with personal data. A privacy statement for the study states: “When reading social media messages or viewing camera images, there is a chance researchers will come into contact with messages or images that say something about the political beliefs of demonstrators or bystanders.”

The students watched the surveillance images and only noted general observations, no data on individual persons. No lecturers have seen the footage, so the university affirms that the students who are recognisable in the images can't face any consequences to their studies.

People who can be seen in the images used by the study have several rights. The statement says: “They have the right to know if UU is using their personal data and, if it is, they may view this data. If there are any errors, they can have them corrected. In addition, they can ask UU to delete their personal data, but certain conditions apply.”