Mayor: Unknown pro-Palestine group threatened demonstration

Dijksma says that sources outside Utrecht contacted the police last Tuesday, giving them reliable information about an unknown pro-Palestine group planning to disrupt the planned demonstration – by force if necessary. The police were unable to gain more insight into the nature and size of the group at such short notice.

“The group did its best to be as invisible as possible (both online and offline)”, Dijksma wrote in her response to questions posed by the parties Student & Starter, D66, GroenLinks, PvdA and ChristenUnie.

According to Dijksma, the police concluded that the safety of activists could not be guaranteed. The expected turnout (possibly 10,000 people) also played a role in this decision. Several alternatives, such as a demonstration without a march through the city centre, were rejected by the police.

The mayor therefore asked the trade unions FNV and AOb not to allow the protest to go ahead. Both unions consented to this request. However, if they had not done that, the mayor writes she would have banned the demonstration anyway.

The fact that the mayor did not seem to have a problem with the several thousand demonstrators who gathered in Moreelsepark and walked through the city centre the next day angered the unions. But, according to Dijksma, “after assessing the situation on the spot”, the municipality concluded there was no reason to ban that protest.

“This was partly because the demonstration offered space to different voices”, she writes. It remains unclear what she means by that. According to the mayor, there was no information about this smaller demonstration being threatened in the same way as the original one was.

The mayor emphasises that the decision to cancel the demonstration was not taken lightly. According to her, the right to demonstrate remains a great asset that she would like to protect.