On Monday, the police arrested three men who allegedly attacked exhibitors of the right-wing student club Groot-Nederlandse Studentenvereniging (GNSV) during the introduction week of student associations at Radboud University.
The suspects are a 38-year-old man from Nijmegen, an 18-year-old man from Oegstgeest and a man who refuses to identify himself. The Nijmegen police say they suspect a conflict, but the investigation into the exact cause of the fight is still ongoing. Police say three people were slightly injured in the clashes.
“It is scandalous and sad that holders of a stand at the introductory market have been confronted with violence today,” says a spokesman for the Executive Board of Nijmegen University. “Violence should never be a solution to differences of opinion, especially not on a day when new students are introduced to their university and each other.”
New location
Last week there was already some fuss on social media about GNSV’s participation in the introduction market, where about two hundred study and social associations, social organizations and companies present themselves. In an article in the magazine The Storm Lamp, ‘a patriotic youth magazine’, from January 2022, the GNSV is announced as a new association that has been active in Leiden for a year. Nijmegen must become a new location for the club. The GNSV is “a political association for right-wing students who look at society with a critical eye, and who are fed up with the left-wing subject matter in the lecture halls!” The GNSV ‘actively strives for a union of all Dutch-speaking areas in Europe under one nation state’. On Instagram, the club has 367 followers.
The university in Nijmegen has no objections to GNSV activities. Radboud University says it promotes “a safe, inclusive and just academic community that embraces and propagates diversity”. The educational institution also states: “We expect participants in the introduction market to adopt a respectful attitude towards everyone in their communications. Expressions of sexism, racism, discrimination or (physical) threats are unacceptable to Radboud University.”
On X, formerly Twitter, GNSV says that its exhibitors “have been attacked by a group of far-left cowards. In any case, it is our intention to still be present on the market and to get to know the new students at the university in a pleasant way”. The introductory market was supposed to end again today.
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