And holy shit it was intense. The police escalated in every way.

First I was standing close in the area of the encampment, together with other protestors. But not too close because the cops had shut it off all entrances 50m from the encampment. They would also not let us get a closer look from the bridge so we couldn’t see what they were doing. And this bridge was far from the encampment as well. This was all at 17:30. By then the eviction had already started. We were protesting and chanting and more people joined us. Then someone shouted that the busses that would be used for the arrestees were parked and we needed to go there. Some people stayed but I and others went to the busses. There were two busses in a straight line and we blocked them from the front. In front of the busses were cops. Then the bus in the back left by driving backwards. I felt bad because we didn’t think of blocking them from the back. Then we blocked the bus from both sides. One of the tires was also succesfully deflated, and a new bus had to be used later on. The cops in front were gone and the demonstration went back to near the encampment, where there was also a metro entrance called Rokin. It was very busy. At least a thousand people were protesting. We were chanting the whole time. The entrance was by now fulled blocked by riot police. They were taking pictures of us and most of us were covering our faces, mostly with face masks, keffiyehs or Palestinian flags. Every once in a while some riot police would push some of the protestors, leading to our condemnation. At some point the riot police by the metro entrance were pushed back slightly by the demonstrators, but after a while the riot police provocated again, apparently also using tear gas. The demonstrators at that side then put up a barricade against the police. The squatted house nearby then showed their support from the window. Then on the other side of the metro entrance a new barricade was put up meaning that the police couldn’t get to us from there leaving only a small exit for them. Some people threw stuff and the organizers tried to tell them that wasn’t allowed since we didn’t want a reason for the police to escalate. After a while the two barricades were joined together leaving even less space for the cops. But this almost failed and the police almost got through.

We started seeing special riot police called Arrestatieteam, who are known to be more violent standing at the gates of the metro station. We were standing on top of the stairs and they were 30m away from us. This was at 21:30. Quickly after, the cops started charging us from the north and we had to retreat. There was full panic and everybody started running. People tried to tell eachother to stay calm and not run. The riot police had police dogs and the police cars were also coming our way. I saw one girl fall down and when her friend helped her up, they were pushed back violently. These girls were running away like everybody else. There was no need to push them. We escaped through an alleyway, and then people started running even faster. I didn’t look back but I guess they were charging towards us even more. The alleyway ended up on Rembrandtplein, a busy square with a lot of cafés where we were chanting. The organizers ordened us to stay on the square, so we are stronger if they decided to arrest us. After a while, at 12 o’clock we decided to move again but then the police came from the front and we were forced to retreat back to the square. There, there was a small altercation between some partygoers and some protestors. We tried to calm them down, and we succeeded. We stayed at the square, and by then some new protestors had arrived who cooked meals for us. But at 1:15 almost everybody had left.

We had some small successes, like making one of the busses unusable and barricading the police to cause them to retreat a little. And also, by being there by such large numbers I think we made the eviction a little harder for them since they had to focus on the protestors as well. The fact they sent in the most violent riot police showed us that we were powerful and that there were afraid of us. But still I feel like the police won, since the eviction still happened, we were forced away, people were still arrested and beated til they were bleeding and because they didn’t do anything at the square, except for cop cars watching us, so people there left on their own.

Why do the police treat peaceful protestors like this? They blocked the entrance to the encampment from all sides. So why were they so violent to us, who were at least 50 meters away from the encampment and with other houses in the way? They could’ve decided to leave us alone and only block the entrances but no they had try to surround us from all sides. Ah well, I know why, but it’s still as fucked up.

About the eviction itself, which I didn’t see. The barricades there were all removing by bulldozers. Some people climbed on the bulldozers to stop them, but they were arrested or escaped by jumping in the canal. The police threw stuff from the barricade into the canal. Inside the encampment police were beating up and arresting people with excessive violence. Apparently the police also threw away personal items that were at the encampment.

I kept calling it an encampment, but I guess it’s actually a squat, since it’s a building that was occupied.