On the terrace behind Den Bosch station, Marco Meesters moves his plate with bouncer forward. The Brabant folk singer is wearing a bomber jacket about his training suit; Both his hands and neck are tattooed. Next to him, Jurgen (“no last name”) is in a red-white-blue training suit. Both belong to the hard core of football club FC Den Bosch.
“You have to know: we can’t say anything about certain things,” begins. You don’t talk to journalists in the hooligan world. “That’s against the code.” But now that they have been discredited after the riots on the Malieveld in The Hague from two weeks ago, they still want to be heard.
Their involvement in anti-asylum protests started in the summer, Masters and Jurgen say. Syrian boys caused nuisance at the fair in Den Bosch. “They were difficult for women and were looking for a fight,” says Jurgen. The following evening, more than a hundred Den Bosch hooligans went to the fair. They walked around and shouted: “AZC, gone with it.”
The ME jerked out because of the fear of a confrontation, but according to Masters the action was a great success. “The security guards of the fair were happy, they said: we are not allowed to do anything ourselves, but if you have to intervene, we will look the other way.”
Since then they call themselves ‘Defend Den Bosch’. When a call comes by in mid-September to go to the Malieveld with supporters from other football clubs for an anti-immigration demonstration, Meesters and Jurgen arrange a coach. They travel with 150 people – a part goes by train – to The Hague. They take a hundred Dutch flags and have black shirts printed with an orange lion and the text ‘Fight for your country’.
The supporters come to make ‘a statement’, says Masters. “If you unite with two thousand hooligans, which is normally never possible, then that is really a goosebump moment.”
But for the organizer of the demonstration-the 26-year-old PVV trailer Els Noort-it will be a nightmare. Her protest, renamed ‘Elsfest’, ends with smoke bombs, tear gas and charges. Windows of the D66 party office die; A police car is on fire. The Malieveld has been visible for some time for some time: extreme right -wing groups and football supporters from the hard core mix in local opposition to new asylum seekers’ centers. In recent months, various ‘defend groups’ have been established that travel through the country to stir up riot. ‘Sleeping’ anti-coronary guidelines have also been revived and members of it go up against the barricades against AZCs. The distinction between peaceful demonstrations against asylum policy and organized confrontations is slowly disappearing.
‘Relay Protest’
On June 9, 2025, a few hundred people protest on an industrial estate in Dordrecht, where an AZC is being built for nearly six hundred asylum seekers. It is the first time that tiler Richard van der Elst is organizing a demonstration – he himself lives opposite the new -build location. He calls it a ‘relay protest’: after Dordrecht the baton must be passed on to the next city that opposes an AZC. And so on. Van der Elst hopes that it will lead to an increasingly larger resistance group that will eventually go to the manifestation on the Malieveld, organized by Els Noort with whom he cooperates.
Thanks to video interviews with unheard of the Netherlands, news of the day (made by De Telegraaf and Hart van Nederland) and Pownews, his initiative soon gets “a national look,” says Van der Elst. “I am still called from all over the country by people who also want to organize a demonstration in their municipality.”
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A week later after ‘Dordrecht’, Van der Elst is in Bilthoven. This is followed by Haarlem, Didam, Den Hoorn and Venlo. Often with a permanent club of speakers from Forum for Democracy and BVNL, the party of former MP Wybren van Haga.
In the speeches, protesters are told how dangerous asylum seekers are. The name ‘Lisa’ falls, the 17-year-old victim of murder in Amsterdam for which an AZC resident was arrested. “Victims like Lisa show how big the problem is,” says Els Noort on stage in Venlo.
Richard van der Elst emphasizes several times that the demonstrations are an initiative of “thinking citizens” who are only concerned about the arrival of asylum seekers with “traumas.” He focuses on “on moderate Dutch people who dare to say during a birthday with a drink how they think about asylum seekers.”
Yet other groups also mix in the protests from the start. In Dordrecht there are members of the extreme right -wing clubs such as Voorpost and Pegida among the public. In Didam, a speaker affiliated with Pegida has been invited to stage. And with a protest in Hoofddorp, Pegida also wants to take over the leadership of the demonstration. “Then I intervened,” says Van der Elst. He blows off the demonstration. Anti-Islam movement Pegida is “too extremist,” he says. It will be on angry reactions. Van der Elst: “That was a large learning process.
In Helmond, the tension rises at an AZC demonstration where PVV leader Wilders speaks. There are left -wing counter -protesters who wave behind a deposit with Palestinavlaggen. Local organizer Erwin (does not want a surname in the publicity) sees that there are also hooligans of football club Helmond Sport. “They normally agree in the forest to fight each other.” When the hooligans focus on the counter -protesters, Erwin intervenes from the stage. “I said: this is not a football match, but a demonstration. Right.” Erwin himself is also part of the hard core of Helmond Sport, he says. “Maybe that’s why they listened to me.”
Demonstration against the arrival of an asylum seekers’ center in front of the town hall of Amersfoort, Tuesday 30 September.
Photo Merlin Daleman
Heavy fireworks
Elsewhere in the Netherlands, groups also appear that give the protests a grim character. Such as Tuesday evening in Amersfoort. From two wooden pallets, Eldor van Feggelen, spokesperson for Defend Netherlands, addresses the public for the town hall. “Beware of hatred against all foreigners,” he shouts through a megaphone. “Highly educated, native people with managerial positions at the COA, the police, the Public Prosecution Service, the mayor here: those are the traitors in our society. They put our country on sale.” Cheers sounds.
In fact, this demonstration would not take place. The original protest was canceled by the local organizers because the municipality had suspended the plans for two new AZCs. But Bianca Wagt, who organized demonstrations against the corona policy during the Pandemie in Amersfoort, did not settle for this. “I know the tricks of the municipality,” she says by telephone. “Such a decision is temporary.”
She calls acquaintances from her coronation time, such as welder Eldor van Feggelen. Together they breathe new life into the protest. Via Instagram and Telegram calls on Defend Netherlands to come to Amersfoort again. An additional reason is mentioned in the chat groups: Antifa also comes.
The call has been heard, it appears Tuesday evening. In front of the town hall waving in black-dressed men with Dutch flags and prince flags (orange-white-blue, popular in extreme right-wing circles). They call “we are the Netherlands” and “AZC away with it.” A row of police officers on the cycle path separates them from the left -wing counter -protesters who sing that “Nazis” must be thrown into the canal.
If at eight o’clock a part of the left -wing counter -protesters leaves for the station, the right -wing protesters try to chase them. A line agents with baton stops them. Two police horses jump around in a shock when heavy fireworks are thrown. The police eventually perform six arrests.
Three new departments
Defend groups have appeared everywhere in the last few weeks at asylum protests. For example, a man in a defend-shirt on Tuesday was not only present in Amersfoort, but a few days earlier also at an AZC protest in Noordwijk. It turns out to be Peter van Vliet, a well-known right-wing extremist who also regularly wears a T-shirt with an SS sign.
Three new departments were recently established in Noord-Brabant: Defend Den Bosch, Defend Vught and Defend Schijndel. It is reminiscent of the Coronapandemie, when black -clad groups also organized locally under the name ‘Defend’ and were regularly involved in riots. Van Feggelen says that his defend group is completely separate from that. “We are completely new.” According to him, the following consists partly of hard-core football supporters, “but also of fathers, sons, mothers and daughters with worries about the situation in the Netherlands.”
Sixty percent voted on the right, but our points are not being implemented. Then people get angry
During the protest two weeks ago at the Malieveld in The Hague, the tires were clearly visible: hundreds of black -clad football supporters gathered at the Kloosterkerk to walk to the Malieveld in a parade. Van Feggelen himself was at the forefront with the banner of Defend Netherlands.
In advance, Van Feggelen had announced with organizer Els Noort that he would come to the Malieveld “with five hundred men”. “Without saying who they were.” Because he noticed that Noort was worried about the possible arrival of football supporters, he had reassured her. “I said,” Els, don’t worry, our people are just peaceful. “
That is still the starting point, says Van Feggelen. “We are not looking forward to violence with the police, but if the police do not comply with the law, then I will not go aside.”
Els Noort was not available for comments for NRC. According to Bianca Wagt, who is in contact with her, Noort is “quite through it” because she would get the fault of the riots from everyone.
Demonstration in Amersfoort, Tuesday 30 September.
Photo Merlin Daleman
Open day at AZC
On the terrace in Den Bosch, Marco Meesters and Jurgen tell that they continue to continue with their actions after the Malieveld. Last week the police went to an AZC in Den Bosch, because the group of masters would like to storm the location during the national Open Day.
Jurgen: “That was not based on anything.
Marco: “It was an open day.”
Jurgen: “When we heard that we were not welcome, someone was called in the app group that we are going to show our face there.”
Marco: “Make our voice heard.”
Jurgen: “No storming.”
Marco Masters and Jurgen they speak of shame that the police turn against them. “They have to stand behind the Dutch people.” At the same time, they also see that there is a threat from the protests. “It is getting grim,” says Jurgen.
According to them, this is partly because politics does not do what the people want it. “Sixty percent voted on the right,” says Jurgen, “but our points are not being implemented. Then people get angry.” He pushes his chair back. “This is only the beginning.”
This weekend, Defend Netherlands is present at an AZC protest in Schiedam. Amsterdam will follow on October 12. And before October 29, the day of the parliamentary elections, another defend group is called upon to keep AZC demonstrations throughout the Netherlands. “Then there is hardly any police and me available and we can make our voice heard better!”
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