At the hotel in Albergen in the Overijssel municipality of Tubbergen, which was purchased by the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers COA, many demonstrators were again on Thursday evening. At the beginning of the evening, a few hundred residents are again present for a local protest against the arrival of asylum seekers.
Fewer young people are present than on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, when spontaneous counter-actions were held. A banner that has often been criticized on social media with the text ‘Keep Albergen clean’ has since been removed. Instead, four new banners have been hung with texts such as ‘There is no place for AOW’ers, this cabinet prefers asylum seekers’ and ‘A cozy village with 3000 neighbours, you cannot send 300 AZC’ers there. .’
A large trailer is parked in front of the hotel. According to those present, the intention is to use it as a stage. JA21 leader Joost Eerdmans comes to Albergen in the evening to talk to concerned residents. MP Pieter Omtzigt will also go to Albergen for a private meeting with residents. He asks Parliamentary questions about the purchase of the hotel.
a lot of resistance
On Tuesday it was announced that the cabinet wants to force the municipality to receive asylum seekers in the hotel, but there is a lot of opposition to this. As a result, a spontaneous run-up arose at the building on Tuesday evening. “That’s not how you treat people”, Mayor Wilmien Haverkamp said on Wednesday about the intention to impose the reception “from above”. According to State Secretary Eric van der Burg (Asylum), the coercive measure is necessary because more space is needed for refugees in the Netherlands because the reception center in Ter Apel has been completely full for a long time.
According to the COA, three hundred asylum seekers can be accommodated in Albergen. The residents think that is too much. ‘Democracy has lost if the Netherlands does not make itself heard’, one of the banners reads. And: ‘Due to mismanagement we lose our cozy village’.