It’s 4PM on a Sunday in Amsterdam. My girlfriend and I came here to celebrate our 11th anniversary. Instead, we find ourselves indefinitely detained on a bus with a motley crew of strangers. Surrounded by cops in riot gear, we’re escorted through the city by a police convoy, disrupting traffic on every street we pass down. Pedestrians seem puzzled; some raise fists like we’re martyrs (we respond with peace signs), others record us on their phones.
Inside the bus, my girlfriend and I have questions. Questions like: ‘Where are we being taken?’ ‘Will we be arrested?’ ‘What did we do wrong?’ There are enough detained protesters to fill two buses, but no one has answers. The cops respond with silence and smug smiles.
Most of the other detainees think we’ll be dropped off somewhere north of Amsterdam. One girl tracks our live location to help an elderly Indian lady arrange transport back to the city. Some are prepared to be arrested. One woman texts her husband, “I think we’re leaving Amsterdam.” Someone behind me jokingly taps their card on the bus reader. They might be arrested, but at least they paid their fare.
A young girl instructs a nervous tourist: “Don’t say anything, don’t show them your documents.” Solidarity with the undocumented. I start to worry—my passport is back at the hotel, making me an undocumented Black man at the mercy of a foreign police force.
In front of me, two young punks stand near a cop. We’ve been driving for almost an hour, yet they’re still cracking jokes. I don’t speak Dutch, but I recognise all the memes they quote.
We look out at a gray landscape of industrial buildings disappearing into the mist. We’re in the middle of nowhere. One of the punks sarcastically makes a chronically online remark: “Ooooh, shiver me timbers.” I laugh and immediately feel more at ease.
I recognise the absurdity of the situation: I’m in fear when all I’ve done is join a protest in a liberal democracy. I try to stay calm. I imagine how fancy a Dutch jail might be.
Earlier, my girlfriend and I had been on our way to the small Chinese district, Zeedijk. Amsterdam was the second city we visited together almost a decade ago, and this time we decided to walk everywhere.
We were passing Dam Square when we saw the police forming blockades. Curious, we stopped. Dam Square is the heart of the city’s consumerist activity—seeing it sectioned off was surreal. We heard chanting and soon realized it was a pro-Palestine protest.
As we later learned, the demonstration had been “banned.” No cops communicated with us in English despite Dam Square being a major tourist hub, so unless you’d followed the local news, you’d have no way of knowing the mayor had outlawed the protests.
The crowd was massive, made up of hundreds of protesters and onlookers, much like pro-Palestine protests in London. Diverse groups of all ages, including families with young children, all chanting for justice. Despite media claims of anti-Semitism, the demands were morally straightforward: stop bombing children, whether in Palestine or Lebanon. It felt like the only dangerous people there were the cops.
A local brought out a drum, and the crowd grew livelier. But it didn’t last. A group of white men in black civilian clothing emerged from the crowd, grabbed the drummer, and vanished behind the cops’ barrier. They shoved her into a van, and that was the last we saw of her. Plainclothes officers had infiltrated the protest. We shouted for her release, but what else could we do?
The protest didn’t stop commerce completely. Shoppers bundled out of H&M with their fast-fashion purchases, through a crowd protesting genocide. As the square was cut off, our numbers diminished, while the ranks of armored cops grew. A girl shouted, “The police are locking us in from the left.” Leaving was no longer an option.
My girlfriend heard someone yell, “They’re about to use rubber bullets,” and we ran into Nieuwendijk, the only street left available to us. Armored riot police trapped us from both ends within seconds. Looking back, I suspect the shouted warning came from an undercover cop.
For the next hour, I stood a meter from a line of riot police, growing accustomed to their smug smiles. They seemed visibly drunk on power. Tourists tried reasoning with them, showing tickets for various attractions, but the police were unmoved. Only conventionally attractive young white women were allowed to leave the police kettle. An interracial couple weren’t allowed to depart, and an older Black man showing his work ID was ignored—I think he worked nearby and was trying to get home. I’m almost certain he ended up on one of the buses with us.
People watched from balconies and across the street, past the police line. Staff at a nearby store helped some escape, but once the cops caught on, they shut it down. If we were violent rioters, would middle-aged women at a cheese shop risk opening the door to help us?
The cops formed a second barrier. They aggressively grabbed bystanders—some of whom were just buying snacks—and shoved them away. Another group of protesters formed on the other side, shouting for our release. A girl explained that these protests were “banned.”
A guy with a ponytail urged us to push through and run. “There’s more of us,” he reasoned. I agreed, but knew better. Every Black mother back home in Brazil warns you to carry ID at all times, in case “anything happens”—in other words, someone needing to identify your body after you’ve been killed by the police.
My passport was at the hotel, my ID back in London. As much as I wanted to push through, I had to make myself invisible. I could only see myself being cuffed or hospitalized at best, or at worst, another Black man “accidentally” killed.
A few moments later, two men broke through the police barrier. One was the guy with the ponytail. Within seconds, they were both bleeding on the pavement, one unconscious. A woman shouted for medics, but the cops just shrugged.
We were pushed back, the circle tightening. People were commenting on body odor. My escape plans grew more absurd—I studied the pipes on the buildings, wondering if my girlfriend and I could quickly climb one and slip through an open window.
It was clear the cops hoped the initial beatings would spark panic and give them an excuse to knock us all unconscious. Some older protesters saw it immediately. One older man climbed up and shouted, “No one move, everyone calm down.” His peaceful, confident voice steadied us. We stayed still. We chanted, “There is no riot here, why are you in riot gear?”
A man with a thick, raspy voice spoke about how the systems the cops protected were doomed to fall, how they could never crush us, how Palestine could never die. His words felt like something from a film, but they didn’t sound foolish. I shook his hand later.
By then, independent observers had arrived—just in time to miss the police violence. Coincidentally, that’s when the police started moving us out of the area. They gestured for us to go—no words, no explanation. We were herded onto two buses and waited in paranoid silence for 10-15 minutes before they started moving.
At around 5.15PM, they dropped us off near Roesiel 18 street, by a retail store in the Westpoort district. One cop said, “We’re leaving you here, good night.” I relied on the Dutch guy next to me to translate the words, but not the sarcasm.
Not all of us were allowed to leave. A young BIPOC couple, both wearing keffiyehs, was kept inside. I guess the cops needed at least a few arrests to justify how “productive” they’d been.
Outside, the crowd quickly realized some were still detained. People began knocking on the windows, demanding their release. It felt like another protest was about to erupt right there.
I felt terrible. I wanted to stay and fight, but something told me it would end badly. We were far from the city center, with few witnesses around. The words “document” and “undocumented” had been mentioned a lot. I realized how much I stood out—a Black man with an easily identifiable outfit. Envisioning my only ID back in a hotel room on the other side of the city.
I made a choice, one that felt morally wrong. I grabbed my girlfriend’s hand and we left, as quickly as we could, before the cops decided to take us too. We left it all behind—the buses, the police, our fellow protesters. We became just another tourist couple on our 11th anniversary, as the plan had been before we landed in Amsterdam.
But next time, I’ll have my ID on me. Next time, we’ll stay.
The post How I Spent My Anniversary Detained by Dutch Riot Police appeared first on VICE.
The post How I Spent My Anniversary Detained by Dutch Riot Police appeared first on VICE.
