A sign intended to point asylum seekers from the ship in Velsen-Noord to the bus was made illegible with black graffiti on the first day after installation.
Posts in the Facebook group ‘Je bent Velsen-Noorder als…’ yesterday already foreshadowed the vandalism: “Can’t we just take it down again?”, a man reacted to photos of the new signs.
The caption of the photographer himself was not very tolerant either, let alone true. He wrote again: “What did the municipality say: ‘We try to keep the people of the boat out of the village’. Well, that’s where it starts, the arrogance of this municipality. It then puts this signage from the ship to the downtown, and do it at night. How do you get the residents to the ceiling?”
Quite a bit of resistance
Around the time of the arrival of the ship yesterdaythe municipality has indeed put up signs to indicate the route from the cruise ship to the bus.
But although the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) and the Municipality of Velsen have said from the start that the thousand temporary new residents can also leave the (terrain around the) ship, the Facebook messages and the smeared sign show that the arrival of the asylum seekers still encounter quite a bit of resistance in the community.
For now, the municipality has announced through a spokesman that it has the smeared sign ‘in view’. The spokesperson is not yet sure whether the municipality will also file a report.
“The so-called safelanders and those who have exhausted all legal remedies do not come here”
The aforementioned dissatisfied Facebook messages are not isolated. People also share their concerns on Twitter and tweeters make comments along the lines of ‘the ship where 1,000 asylum seekers will be spoiled.’
Whether the cruise ships will indeed feel like a luxury stay will have to become clear from Monday when the first refugees arrive.
What is already clear is that most of the temporary residents will have fled from a country that is unsafe for them. People who do come from a safe country or who have already been deported from the Netherlands do not come to Velsen, the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) reports again.
“They are refugee families, men and women,” said a spokesman. “We don’t know yet who they are exactly. But the so-called safelanders and those who have exhausted all legal remedies do not come here.” These groups are usually seen as the most nuisance.
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Of course, there was also some dissenting voice on the social channels here and there. A woman also noticed the blackened signs this afternoon and shares her fellow villagers in the Facebook group ‘Je bent Velsen-Noorder als…’:
“Super handy… all signs underneath with graffiti. It makes sense if you don’t agree with something that you let your voice be heard. The annoying thing about this ‘joke’ is that people no longer follow a route at all, but just go around walk in Velsen-Noord and may cause unrest. Thank you to the person who did this!”
And another man addressed his fellow villagers under a post criticizing ‘a beautiful boat with free board and lodging’:
“Yes, life is a lot more expensive for us. Yes, we are having a harder time than a year ago. But that is stabilizing again. In a while, thanks to these people, we will have cheap labor again and we are soooo happy with these people!”