The lorazepam helps with falling asleep, but not against the nightmares. He is locked up and beaten; someone else is being beaten and he can do nothing about it; he is kidnapped.
She takes oxazepam and temazepam but wakes up drenched in sweat every hour. In her nightmares: someone who cannot move is being beaten. She prefers not to take the addictive tranquilizers: in training to become a yoga teacher during a sabbatical – she is a lawyer – she learned to find peace within herself. “But that is not possible now.”
A month ago, on Wednesday, November 13, Mohamed El Bastawisy (24) and Janneke de Lange (36) attended a demonstration against genocide in Gaza in the evening. Hundreds of demonstrators ignored an Amsterdam emergency ordinance banning the demonstration and marched to Dam Square around six o’clock.
The demonstration ended relatively quietly, the police took demonstrators away in GVB buses – to the Westerpark, it was announced. But two of the three buses eventually drove to another place, far outside the city – the Western Docklands – where the police used force against the demonstrators. NRC previously spoke to fifteen attendees who told from their perspective what had happened that evening. Because the police investigation into the violence is still ongoing, the police do not want to say anything substantive about it yet. Earlier, the police said that demonstrators from the first bus walked back from Westerpark to Dam Square. To prevent this, the other two buses were taken to the Western Docklands.
Assistance dog
Police violence always has an impact on the people involved. An enforcer from the Municipal Transport Company (GVB) who was on site thought he would never come home again. Violent interventions also “leave traces” for riot police, a riot police commander said earlier NRC. What does it mean to be on the receiving end of violence? El Bastawisy and De Lange both filed a report against the police. In the attic of a yoga studio in the center of Amsterdam they talk about what they experienced that evening. Dog Bodi lies between them – De Lange’s neighbor’s dog. She often babysits him, but since November 13 he has been sleeping with her every night. She calls him her service dog.
I can’t sit at home and pretend nothing happened
El Bastawisy is from Egypt and has now lived in the Netherlands for four years. He studies, what and where he prefers not to say, for fear for his safety. Despite this, he does want his full name in the newspaper. And also despite the fact that he wants to apply for a Dutch passport next year and wonders whether he might reduce his chances with this interview. His doctor also told him not to do it – revive it that night, travel far (he lives an hour and a half from Amsterdam) and have long conversations. “But I have to. I can’t sit at home and pretend nothing happened.”
He and De Lange received the most blows that evening. In the commotion that ensues after they are dropped, El Bastawisy and De Lange fall behind, while other demonstrators are able to run away. Every demonstrator that NRC spoke to before starts about two people who were knocked to the ground and were punched while they lay there motionless.
Also read
Deported demonstrators accuse riot police of excessive violence. ‘They hunted us’
From Dam Square, the demonstrators are taken to a remote parking lot in the Western Docklands and let off the bus there.
They won’t leave us here, De Lange thinks as she gets off the bus. Without telling us where we are or how we get back to civilization? It is pitch dark, there are only trucks in the parking lot. Some unmanned, others with drivers who wake up from the noise and look on sullenly. She is scared and gets back on the empty bus. Then the doors close.
El Bastawisy also doesn’t know where he is. He wants to go home, but doesn’t know how. He and the others already start walking. Then he hears from someone else that a woman is locked in the bus. He walks back with about a dozen others – they don’t want to leave her alone. They try to contact De Lange by knocking on the window and showing messages on their phones through the window.
An officer on the bus covers his face with his scarf. Why does he do that, El Bastawisy wonders. He and the other returning demonstrators decide to wait and stand around the bus. Somewhere at the back someone is tapping a window, hoping to contact De Lange. They see the officer saying something into a walkie-talkie. About three to four minutes later, sirens sound.
The enforcer is a big guy. But now he is on his own
‘Now they can go in’
The man on the bus turns out not to be a cop, as people outside think. He is a 23-year-old CFP enforcer. And he is also afraid at that moment, so signed Het Parool earlier. He is a big guy and is often deployed during disturbances. But now he is on his own. The seven riot police who rode in the bus from Dam Square rushed away due to an emergency elsewhere. The enforcer and the bus driver are left with the two of them.
Then the enforcer sees the woman standing on the bus. While he talks to her, the driver closes the doors. They see more people walking back to the bus. The enforcer feels unsafe and wants to keep the doors closed. People bang on the bus and fiddle with the door. A window is smashed in the back of the bus. Now they can go in, he thinks. He contacts the duty officer via his walkie-talkie.
Táá túú, táá túú. Two police vans arrive on the scene within a few minutes. The doors open and riot police officers pour out, equipped with helmets, shields and batons – which they use. The enforcer is relieved. But the demonstrators outside don’t understand it.
He can’t go anywhere
El Bastawisy hides between two trucks, but the riot police find him and beat him. “Get out,” they shouted, so I ran away. But they came after me.” Despite the shooting pains in his side where the baton hit him, he continues to run. Until he comes across a ditch, into which other demonstrators have already jumped – but El Bastawisy cannot swim. He runs along the ditch, around the bend, but police vans are now also coming from that side: he has nowhere to go.
Then he sees someone fall. It is De Lange, who was let off the bus after the riot police arrived. He doesn’t know that yet, they don’t know each other. Several officers stand around her, one starts hitting. She screams. “I wanted to run away, but I couldn’t leave her behind,” says El Bastawisy. “So I went back, towards the officers. That was very, very scary.”
He rubs his temples as he talks. “Should you lie down and close your eyes?” Tall Hendrik asks him. “No, that just makes me see it more clearly.”
El Bastawisy tries to help De Lange up, he says, and also receives blows. Then he feels a blow to his head. He falls to the ground, everything goes dark.
De Lange: “Then I tried to get him up, but he didn’t give any reaction. He didn’t move.”
El Bastawisy: “After about ten seconds I came to again. My vision was blurred.”
I tried to talk to the officers, shouting that he was unconscious
According to the two, the beating continues. “I tried to talk to the officers and shouted that he was unconscious,” says De Lange. “But no interaction was possible.” When El Bastawisy gets up after about ten seconds, the two are ordered to keep walking. El Bastawisy: “Faster, faster, they kept shouting. But in the meantime they were hitting my legs.”
Eventually the hitting stops, but they have to keep walking. After a while they approach other demonstrators. A taxi has been called – it is immediately offered to El Bastawisy and De Lange, everyone saw what happened to them. The taxi takes the two to the OLVG hospital, where El Bastawisy is diagnosed with a concussion.
Bruises
Around midnight they go their separate ways: Tall Hendrik goes home, El Bastawisy goes to a friend with whom he can spend the night. He doesn’t sleep that night and decides to take the train back home around half past six in the morning. Along the way he keeps stumbling and has to grab onto things on the street. When he has to change trains at Utrecht Central Station, he bursts into tears.
Both are left with bruises from the experience, El Bastawisy also a concussion. It’s impossible to put the event behind him, he says: every time he opens social media, he sees himself. The videos keep circulating. He’s watched them hundreds of times. “My psychologist says I should stop doing that.”
He rarely goes out on the street. When he sees a police car or hears a siren, he panics. “I try to tell myself it’s not for me, but my body wants to run.” He no longer takes the bus. „Bam, bam, bam”, he whispers. “The Heart.”
De Lange experiences the same thing. “I always had a lot of confidence in the police,” she says. “Now I panic when I see a cop on the street. My heart rate increases and my body starts to shake.” Dog Bodi puts his head in her lap.
El Bastawisy has been to college once since then. He became dizzy and vomited. After that he didn’t go again, he didn’t tell anyone for fear of being sent away. “But I have to tell you now, I have already missed an exam.” He would prefer to resume his studies, because “I don’t want to sit at home all day and think about it,” but the doctor says he is not ready for that yet.
Guilt
De Lange cannot teach yoga for the time being – moving still hurts too much and she hardly sleeps. She suffered most of the blows to her spine, the pain radiating to her legs. She has a red rash on her face from the stress. She is plagued by guilt, she says. “People who wanted to help me were beaten up. What if I hadn’t gotten on that bus?”
During the conversation, El Bastawisy becomes dizzy and lies on his side. Bodi snuggles up to him. “I brought you something!” De Lange shouts. She takes a jar of Vicks Vaporub out of her bag. The menthol scent has a calming effect, she says. “For the train.”
Neither are fanatical activists, they say. They had not often been to demonstrations before this – it was the third time for El Bastawisy, the second for De Lange. They think it is important to speak out. “A genocide is taking place and the government is financing it,” says El Bastawisy. “I don’t understand how people can continue their normal lives knowing that innocent people – babies, even – are dying every day. It’s been over a year now, it’s enough. That’s why I went there that Wednesday.”
They are not protesting for the time being. “If I get another blow to the head, I might die,” says El Bastawisy. But once he has recovered, he wants to become more active in the protest movement. “Thanks to the police and government for the extra motivation.”
Also read
Another protest on Dam Square, against war in Gaza and ban on demonstrations
