A group of hundreds of demonstrators, some of whom made their way to the town hall in Loosdrecht with torches and heavy fireworks and ultimately start a fire. It is clear that the protest against the arrival of asylum seekers in an asylum shelter located there got completely out of hand. Police arrested three people suspected of arson and attacking a journalist and police.
Bart Schuurman, professor of Terrorism and Political Violence at Leiden University, emphasizes how serious the situation in Loosdrecht was, but does not want to call it a terrorist act. “This is about deliberate violence, aimed at undermining the democratic constitutional state. Political violence. But to speak of terrorism here is going too far for now.”
No terrorism, but political violence
This is also the opinion of Sarah de Lange, also a professor in Leiden. She specializes, among other things, in political divisions and the rise of the extreme right. “To describe an act like this as terror, it must be clear that someone wants to instill fear in society with that act. That is very difficult to prove, and we cannot say with the information we now have about Loosdrecht. On the other hand, this is demonstrably an attempt to undermine democratic decision-making.”
De Lange refers to statements made by a number of demonstrators, both at the protest and online. “It makes it very clear that the goal here is to influence a political decision.”
