UvA may take punitive measures against demonstrators at Brekelmans interview
The UvA is currently investigating whether “punitive measures” can be taken against students and staff who disrupted the public interview with Defence Minister Ruben Brekelmans last Wednesday. “This feels like the UvA is sitting in a legal chair.”
The sanctions that the UvA possibly take are a (temporary) suspension, a (temporary) denial of access to the campus, “or ultimately perhaps expulsion from the UvA”, says a university spokesperson. “There is a range of possible measures that we can take and we are currently investigating them.”
Last Wednesday, Defence Minister Brekelmans (VVD) visited the UvA, where he was to be interviewed by the students of Room for Discussion. Normally these public interviews take place in the central hall on the ground floor of the E-building of the Roeterseilandcampus (REC), but previous interviews were disrupted there, so the interview with Brekelmans took place on the De Brug event floor on the REC. There it went (again) wrong.
Shameful
According to the UvA spokesperson, UvA security guards were “punched and wrestled to the ground” by pro-Palestinian demonstrators. No material damage was reported. The police report that the UvA is currently preparing will therefore be about “physical” damage allegedly caused to the security guards. There are camera images of the struggle. Earlier this week, Board President Edith Hooge, was furious about the incident, calling the matter “shameful”, taking the matter “very seriously”.
It is not yet clear which UvA students and/or staff were present last Wednesday and may be responsible for the violence, which means it is also not clear against whom any punitive measures could be taken. “We are looking at the CCTV footage, but there were also people with their faces covered, which makes it more difficult,” said the spokesperson.
Problematic
Lecturer political anthropology Martijn Dekker, specialising in social movements and activism, has frequently been present at the pro-Palestinian demonstrations in recent months, acting as a spokesperson for the demonstrators. He was also present last Wednesday. “But I was not part of the demonstration.” He said the atmosphere was not good. In addition to security guards, he said there were also plainclothes officers at De Brug. “I think I recognised them, but this is just speculation on my part.” He calls the fact that the UvA is now investigating possible punitive measures against students and staff who are held responsible for the violence “problematic”.
Chilling effect
“This could lead to what we call in technical terms the ‘chilling effect,’ which is to say threateningly demanding a severe punishment with the aim of preventing people from demonstrating at all,” says Dekker. “This feels like the UvA is sitting in a legal chair and conducting its own investigation, when that is the job of the police.” According to Dekker, it would be better if the UvA, as a community, entered into a dialogue about freedom of demonstration, about what exactly happened and went wrong last Wednesday, and about how to proceed with the open debate as it is being conducted at the UvA and at Room for Discussion. “That seems better to me than taking the whole matter into the legal sphere.”
