No, he wasn’t in his office last Saturday. Otherwise, Gerrit van der Burg could have seen with his own eyes how the much-discussed blockade of Extinction Rebellion still took place. The Public Prosecutor’s Office, which houses the national top of the Public Prosecution Service, overlooks the Utrechtsebaan, the tunnel in which about a thousand climate activists moved.
“Stop fossil subsidies”, graffiti is sprayed on the concrete wall next to the road. “On the other side of the road is that text too, but with a spelling error,” notes the spokesperson present. Van der Burg, laughing: “They were certainly in a hurry.” They are indeed in a hurry, the climate activists. According to them, the threat of a warming earth is so urgent that a traditional demonstration on the Malieveld is no longer an option for them.
Van der Burg understands that a warming earth is causing an increasingly heated mood. “I also have children and a grandchild.” But the highest boss of the Public Prosecution Service also wants to put another debate on the agenda a week after the blockade. He sees public manifestations become increasingly grim in recent years. “In addition to the normal goal, we increasingly see that there is another goal. Namely, we are going to commit crimes. Or, we are going to challenge the authority.” Van der Burg also sees an increase in the violence used in this context. He compares the stones thrown at the riot police during corona demonstrations with the tape with which climate activists tape their fingers to slow down identity registration. “It both come down to the same thing: officers are frustrated in their work.” He emphasizes that climate activists do not use physical violence.
The crime fighter does not want to make a cost-benefit analysis of the right to demonstrate. “But how much the deployment of three hundred officers and fifteen to twenty OM employees cost society last Saturday, you can calculate that yourself.”
Is it really your place to find out about the methods of activists?
“I don’t want to be normative at all about the way activists want to demonstrate. That freedom of choice is inherent to the right to demonstrate, and I don’t want to interfere with that. But the question soon arises: how do you balance different interests against each other?”
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Nevertheless, the emphasis has recently been very much on security and order, and less on the right to demonstrate. Isn’t it the first duty of the authority to ensure that?
“The right to demonstrate is very important to us. But I have seen in the past week that when the OM says that, it is perceived as defensive. It is an important principle for us to continue to live up to that right and other fundamental rights every day. At the same time: when I read that the OM has been intimidating and arbitrary; those are very big words. We also performed at farmers’ protests. We made dozens of arrests, in a number of cases also in advance. Also for sedition.”
Last Saturday, 46 civil society organizations demonstrated against your approach. The right to demonstrate would be “very seriously under pressure” due to “preventive arrests”.
“Yes. While: they should know better, right? These arrests are based on suspicion of sedition, a criminal offense. And we used the most accessible way to pick them up. I even read about an arrest team! Nonsense, of course.”
Being picked off your bike in the morning seems quite drastic to us…
“But we had to arrest all six at the same time, otherwise they could tailor their answers. So there was an investigative interest.”
And yet, does the criticism affect you?
“Just ask us about our motives, I think. Nobody asked us about that this week. We care about safety. So that a citizen, despite the fact that there is a demonstration in the area, can still cross the street with a safe feeling.”
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Extinction Rebellion also says it will stand up for our safety, but in the future. Isn’t the threat they point out to us so existential that you as a triangle have to choose a different approach?
“Well, I think that’s a very risky approach. And also a bit presumptuous that you should be allowed more in larger, more existential matters. The right to demonstrate is for everyone, just as it is limited for everyone where legislation gives us the space.”
In this case, activists did not want to consult with the municipality in advance. That is not necessary. Shouldn’t coordination be made compulsory in advance?
“You will not hear me say what should become mandatory, because I am extremely careful when it comes to guaranteeing the right to demonstrate.”
But would it help you if such a duty came?
“What would help us is if you could make agreements in advance about the scope of a demonstration. In any case, you could explore together what is possible there, but an obligation to coordinate is actually a political question.” Would you applaud it?
“Anything that could help to make more frameworks and agreements around a demonstration at the front would help us a lot in our work.”
You would almost think that being arrested is the intention of climate activists.
“That’s my impression, too. They make it as difficult as possible for us, with chains and glue. Stretching the action so the spotlight stays on you.”
In fact, you play a role in a script that the activists write.
“Yes, although I would like to see it become a joint script. From activists and the local authorities together.”
The House of Representatives is a few doors down. What do you need from politics? “Everywhere you read about the distance between politics and what is happening on the street. That removal gap is apparently widening. It is important that there is finally a rapprochement. So when is that coming?”
A version of this article also appeared in the February 4, 2023 newspaper