<
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/07/world/europe/netherlands-ajax-antisemitism.html>
"The police in Amsterdam arrested 154 soccer fans for singing antisemitic
chants on the train while on the way to a match on Saturday, the authorities
said, the latest in a series of bigoted public displays in the country.
The police said that the supporters continued the songs and chants even after
being told to stop, and then were arrested on charges that included insulting a
group of people because of their race, religion or conviction.
Those arrested were supporters of AZ Alkmaar, a team from a town about a
40-minute drive northwest of Amsterdam, the capital. They were going to see
their team play Ajax, a club with roots in a historically Jewish area of the
city.
“Violence, insults and other criminal acts aren’t accepted,” the police said in
a statement, adding that 11 fans had spent the night in jail on suspicion of
destroying windows and violence toward officers.
This is far from the first case of antisemitism in Dutch soccer, particularly
directed at the Amsterdam team.
“It’s a stubborn problem,” said Naomi Mestrum, the director of the Center for
Information and Documentation Israel (CIDI), a Dutch organization that combats
antisemitism. What was different about this incident, she said, was that the
police had acted in the moment and made immediate arrests.
“Usually we press charges afterward,” she said. CIDI filed a case in April
against someone who the organization said made antisemitic remarks through a
microphone outside the soccer stadium in Rotterdam. Prosecutors are
investigating, the Dutch media reported.
AZ Alkmaar, the soccer club whose fans were arrested on Saturday, denounced the
chants. “The club strongly condemns inflammatory behavior and discrimination
and emphatically distances itself from those who made themselves guilty of it,”
the team said in a statement."
Via Susan ****
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
