7 arrested in The Hague as protests against COVID-19 restrictions turn violent
Global News
Police said in a tweet that seven people were arrested in The Hague and five officers were injured. One needed treatment in a hospital.
Police arrested seven rioters in The Hague on Saturday night after youths set fires in the streets and threw fireworks at officers. The unrest came a day after police opened fire on protesters in Rotterdam amid what the port city’s mayor called “an orgy of violence” that broke out at a protest against coronavirus restrictions.
Elsewhere in the Netherlands, two soccer matches in the top professional league had to be briefly halted after fans — banned from matches under a partial lockdown in force in the Netherlands for a week — broke into stadiums in the towns of Alkmaar and Almelo.
Earlier Saturday, two protests against COVID-19 measures went off peacefully in Amsterdam and the southern city of Breda.
Police said in a tweet that seven people were arrested in The Hague and five officers were injured. One needed treatment in a hospital.
Local media outlet Regio 15 reported that rioters threw bicycles, wooden pallets and motorized scooters on one of the fires.
The rioting in The Hague was on a smaller scale than the pitched battles on the streets of Rotterdam on Friday night, when police said that three rioters were hit by bullets and investigations were underway to establish if they were shot by police. Earlier, police said two people were hit. The condition of the injured rioters was not disclosed.
Officers in Rotterdam arrested 51 people, about half of them minors, police said Saturday afternoon. One police officer was hospitalized with a leg injury sustained in the rioting, another was treated by ambulance staff and “countless” others suffered minor injuries.
Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb told reporters in the early hours of Saturday morning that “on a number of occasions the police felt it necessary to draw their weapons to defend themselves” as rioters rampaged through the port city’s central shopping district, setting fires and throwing rocks and fireworks at officers.
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