As part of the Rainbow Week (8 – 15 October), a large part of the center of Winschoten was decorated with rainbow flags and a banner with the text ‘So that everyone can be themselves in freedom’ on Sunday afternoon. Only a few hours later, the decorations were forcibly pulled off.
An entrepreneur saw it happen from the house above her business. “It happened on purpose,” she said. She pointed out that decorations had already been removed in the afternoon. “By a few residents in the Langestraat. They didn’t want to look at it. When I approached them, I was scolded.”
Alderman Gert Engelkens of the municipality of Oldambt came back to destroying the rainbow flags in clear terms on Tuesday morning, at the opening of international coming out day: “Just deeply sad.”
Regenboog Oldambt, organizer of the Rainbow Week in Oldambt, even speaks of ‘an outright attack on the freedom of the LGBTI community’. She is reporting vandalism and discrimination.