Schriftelijke bijdrage Madeleine Klinkhamer

Written input in the form of questions to Council Meeting of 10 mei 2024 re UvA demonstrations and their violent break-up

1) In December 2023, the NCTV terror level was raised from 3 to 4 (on a scale of 5), what additional measures could the police/ME in Amsterdam take under this level? 2) Why did the police/ME not protect the demonstrators and allow the obvious violent counterdemonstration-outsiders that had brought sticks with them and were setting fire to things, advance so far early in the evening of the first night at Roeterseiland? 3) Why did the police/driehoek opt for the strategy to use terror and intimidate? Use dogs, teargas, an outsized number of ME? Contrast this with a non-violent possibility of response of the Madrid university that took their students seriously and agreed to their demand – to cut all ties with universities in Israel. 4) Why were you using Romeos? Does that really contribute to democracy? 5) Why has the city of Amsterdam not a more intelligent approach to addressing peaceful demonstrations of students? Don´t you feel embarassed with the disproportionate response/what do you think foreign students will now think of the Dutch ´democracy´? 6) Last but not least, do you not think it is a basic right of students in a perceived democracy to express their opinion in what they see and feel around them? (The student protest was peaceful, on the university ground, sitting on the ground as another gesture of peacefulness, with specific demands to their university board)