They want to stop by McDonalds. With the tractor. After a long day of working at the dairy farm in Akkrum and protesting at the distribution center in Heerenveen, the brothers Jouke (16) and Sytse (17) drive home on the A32 in a procession of tractors on Tuesday. The procession is stopped at an exit.
And then things quickly go wrong.
After days of mounting tension, the case exploded on Tuesday evening: the police fired at demonstrators, an unprecedented intervention. Three men are arrested on suspicion of attempted murder. A day later, a wave of anger washes over the country and calls are made to release Jouke, the youngest suspect, from the police cell, a very severe form of vigilance.
“If that bullet had been off by a few millimeters, Jouke would have simply been dead,” says his mother against the Leeuwarder Courant (LC). According to her, her sons see that the others in the group are being fined. The brothers would then decide to drive away.
Images circulating show a red tractor pulling away at great speed. Jouke then follows in a tractor with trailer. As he passes the police blockade, a cop shoots at least twice on the side of the tractor, just above the rear wheel, right next to the driver.
Jouke does not appear to be driving into the officers in the images, as the police later claim. But it’s possible that something predated the video and the farm boys had already been warned. The police speak of warning shots that have been fired. These are not visible on the recording, unless the shots on the trigger are intended. Police declined to answer questions about the incident on Wednesday.
Consequences of nitrogen policy
The day starts at five in the morning for the brothers. They go to work on their parents’ farm, who run a dairy farm with 120 cows. The family has been concerned for some time about the consequences of the nitrogen policy. If they had to downsize their livestock, says the mother in the LCthe company is no longer viable.
Jouke was already present at the farmers’ protest in Stroe last week and before that he had gone to The Hague twice to demonstrate against the policy. He has just completed an MBO education and now wants to go to secondary agricultural school. On one of his last photos on Facebook he proudly shows that he has passed his tractor driving license.
The brothers leave around 7.30 in the evening. ‘I also said: do you have to go?’ says the mother to it AD† ‘Because the atmosphere is quite aggressive. But they’re 16 and 17, aren’t they, so they agreed to meet Thialf in the evening after all.”
From the stadium the brothers drive with some friends to the distribution center of the Spar in Heerenveen. There was also a blockage the day before. Some of the demonstrators did not want to leave when the mayor called for it. This was followed by a charge from the Mobile Unit and tear gas was used. Three suspects were arrested.
It is quiet at the distribution center on Tuesday evening. Images from the Facebook group Verzet Friesland show how Jouke parks his tractor around nine o’clock on Tuesday evening and walks around the site. Around the same time, mayor Tjeerd van der Zwan issues an emergency order. An hour later most of them leave, including Jouke and Sytse.
Targeted shot
At half past ten, according to the police, a threatening situation arises at the exit on the A32. Tractors would drive into cops, says the police on Twitter that eveningafter which a shot was fired.
Three suspects are then arrested: a 46-year-old man from the municipality of Opsterland, a 34-year-old man from Heerenveen and 16-year-old Jouke. They are suspected of attempted manslaughter and spend the night in jail in Leeuwarden. The incident is being investigated by the National Criminal Investigation Department and the Public Prosecution Service.
The next day, outrage arises after images of the incident surface in which it appears that the tractor does not hit the officers. A photo circulates of Jouke with two dogs – soon he is a martyr. A 16-year-old boy who just wanted to go home. More than twenty thousand tweets about Jouke appear, including with the hashtag #FreeJouke.
In app groups are called for revenge. The name and photo of a police officer allegedly involved in the arrest are being shared. Later, the Public Prosecution Service and the police called on to stop sharing the data, as this is punishable by law. A plan has also been developed to go to the prison and the provincial government in Leeuwarden.
Call in app groups
A call that goes around in app groups, including the Freedom Convoy NL group, reads: ‘Get on the tractor, in the car, on the moped or on the bicycle NOW. The government will try to keep you out of the city. DO NOT ALLOW THIS!’ Michel Reijinga, well-known activist and manager of the app group Farmers, fishermen and citizens united!, offers to pay Jouke’s lawyer.
Mark van den Oever, leader of the farmers’ action group Farmers Defense Force (FDF), also joins the plan. ‘I call on our farmers and warriors to go one after the other to Leeuwarden to ensure that that boy is liberated’, he says in a video† He adds that it should be ‘a neat demonstration’. His appeal is remarkable, because FDF has lately repeatedly claimed to have nothing to do with the protests for fear of compensation claims.
Around two o’clock in the afternoon, tractors and dozens of people gather at the provincial government building in Leeuwarden. A small group enters and wants to speak to members of parliament. It does not work. More and more people and hikers are gathering around the police station and the De Marwei penitentiary. The police are closing the roads there as a precaution.
On the Holstmeerweg near the prison is a green tractor with a farmer from the Leeuwarden area. It is about 4:30 and he is one of the last to remain standing. “I want Jouke out,” he says. “And that’s why I’m here.”
Just before this, dozens of farmers left with a lot of noise for the provincial house – allegedly at the request of Jouke’s parents because he would then be released earlier. The last remaining farmer doesn’t really understand that his colleagues have left. Because Jouke is not yet free. “It’s a lot of novices,” he says. “They still believe in the promises of the police.”
He saw the footage of the shooting. “I cursed for a while,” he says. ‘It does something to you. We’ve been warning for weeks that people would have to die before they listen to us. Yesterday it was almost time.’
‘Tis already around our necks’
The farmers standing around the tractor point to the spot on the tractor where the bullet struck Jouke. A bar between the windows of the cabin. “Two inches to the left or right and he wouldn’t have been there.” Yet it does not stop them from standing here now, with all the associated risks. ‘I’ve only become more fanatical’, says the farmer on the tractor. ‘We already have the noose around our necks. I have damn little to lose.’
It is incomprehensible to them that it has come to this on Tuesday evening. “The police are exhausted,” says the man on the tractor. “They’ve been working on corona all the time and with us for weeks now. They don’t know what to do with us anymore.’
A policeman calmly approaches the tractor. A hundred meters away, the road is blocked by police vans. Behind it, Jouke is trapped in a cell, the farmers think.
The policeman also wants the last farmer to leave now. “I don’t play games,” the officer says. ‘We have agreed in good consultation that everyone will go. We don’t want the farmers and the police to come face to face with each other.’