In Berlicum, he has been protesting fiercely since last week against the arrival of an asylum seekers’ center. There are banners hanging on the intended spot of the AZC on the Runweg, last week a fire was set up and pig legs were hung on a fence. At the town hall in Sint-Michielsgestel, which includes Berlicum, campaigners threw with eggs, torches and heavy fireworks. The protest does not stand on its own. The arrival of an AZC also kept the minds in other places.
Heesch (2016)
For example, in Heesch in 2016 there was a lot of protest against the arrival of an AZC. Me people were pelted with fireworks, eggs and logs. A window was also thrown in from the town hall and protesters tried to enter the town hall. The ME carried out charges and the mayor gave off an emergency order.
Four men involved in the violent protests were sentenced to perform community service for up to 180 hours.
No pig legs were hung in Heesch like in Berlicum last week, but a whole pig. It dangled on a tree where the AZC had to come. There was also a pig on a transformer house, surrounded by banners against the arrival of the AZC. A ‘nauseating protest action’, it sounded in the village. The AZC did not end up in the end.
Steenbergen (2015)
Also in Steenbergen in 2015 there was considerable resistance to the arrival of an AZC, there were also proponents. 150 opponents and around 30 proponents of the AZC met each other on the Markt in Steenbergen in October that year. The minds ran so high that the police had to intervene.
After a number of heated discussions and screams, the atmosphere became grim and the opponents of the AZC threw eggs. Then the proponents left because they did not want things to escalate. The police kept the two groups apart with about ten agents. Moments later, Steenbergen attracted the attention nationally when the situation was completely out of hand during an information meeting about the AZC. A woman who praised asylum seekers before the reception of asylum seekers was told that she had to ‘get up’.
A group of protesters also hoeed the woman by ‘having to call a dick in’ against her. After the fierce protests, the city council decided to withdraw the proposal. A majority voted against the arrival of an asylum seekers’ center.
Local politics threatened
Alderman Theo Geldens of the municipality of Sint-Michielsgestel was shouted and scolded last week during an information meeting about the AZC in Berlicum. Situations that drivers experience more often when it comes to these types of meetings.
That it can go a little further turned out last week in Roosendaal. There, the mayor, aldermen and councilors rang the bell on Thursday because they were confronted with threats, false accusations and insults of opponents of the arrival of an AZC in Heerle.
Slaughter waste as a protest Brabants Ritual
According to a Bossche former professor who spoke Omroep Brabant following the protests in Heesch in 2016, it is an old Brabant ritual to use animals as a form of protest. “In Brabant, and with names in the Meierij, we know these kinds of actions to protest against something very well,” he explained at the time. “From history it is a ritual in which slaughter waste and dead animals were used to express the displeasure about something or someone. In the past, they were no banners, then the message was immediately clear. There are hundreds of examples of,” said the professor.