De Efteling has tightened its house rules to prevent demonstration in the amusement park. According to lawyer Willem Jebbink, who specializes in demonstration freedom, that adjustment is not necessary. “Because of the tightening, the amusement park calls the suspicion that will discriminate.”
It has recently been included in the regulations of Efteling that ‘the expressing of (philosophical or political) beliefs or keeping demonstrations’ is not permitted.
Discrimination
“With the mention of philosophical expressions, Efteling is on slippery ice,” says lawyer Willem Jebbink. “That may mean that wearing a chain with a cross or a keppeltje is enough to turn off the park. That goes against the fundamental right of freedom of religion and is discrimination.”
“That sharpening the house rules of the amusement park is not necessary at all. The Efteling can always turn everyone off if she has reason to do so, as long as it is not discriminatory. It only seems commercially awkward to do the expansion of visitors too easy “, Jebbink responds.
Reason tightening
“By explicitly mentioning philosophical expressions in the house rules, Efteling therefore suspects the suspicion that they will ever discriminate. In theory they may already refuse everyone but not on the basis of religious beliefs, skin color, handicap, sexual preference, and so on,” explains Lawyer Jebbink out.
The immediate reason for adjusting the Efteling house rules is the group of visitors who already stood out of the outdoors last September, before they had been in an attraction. The security did not let the group of friends through because one of them had a water bottle with them with stickers from Milieudefensie and a sticker with the text ‘Free Palestine’. Although the 26-year-old visitor was previously arrested in a demonstration of Extinction Rebellion. “But we were just there for a pleasant day in Efteling,” she previously told Omroep Brabant. “We didn’t have a banner, nothing. We wouldn’t know where we could demonstrate.”
Exaggerated
But Efteling’s security could come up with a reason. That day, oil giant TotenEnergies celebrated an anniversary in the park. The security was therefore extra alert on potential activists. That is why, according to a spokesperson for the Efteling, there was ‘acted as a precaution’.
Previously, human rights lawyer Jelle Klaas doubted whether the expansion of this group of visitors was lawful. Besides that he found the response of the Efteling exaggerated, he thought there was prejudices and therefore discrimination.
Subjective
Lawyer Klaas also thinks that Efteling did not make it easier for himself with this tightening. “That is a whole ban on expressing a political conviction. The prohibition is not proportional and not necessary.”
“The ‘intention to express this’ is also far too subjective,” he continues. “You can see that this leaves room for a distinction. A young person with an XR button is probably being picked out, but an older man with a ChristenUnie scarf is not. You get that only some opinions are not allowed.”
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