OT 3 days of rioting thus far

[MadAmster]

There goes the NL's history of being reasonable, tolerant and always happy to discuss matters.

It started on Saturday on the island of Urk as a protest against the curfew that started at 21:00 that evening. The island is very religious. It is also a "closed society". Urkers don't tend to move away. "Foreigners" are treated very suspiciously. The traditional "rocks" of society tend to get ignored there when it comes to listening to sound advice. Vicar, Doctor and the police are all "outsiders". What started as a peaceful march was taken over by the younger locals. They started to throw fireworks, most of it illegal stuff creating eardrum bursting huge bangs and then they started on the riot. Cars were set alight. The local Covid test centre, a temporary "building", was burnt down.

Sunday it spread to larger towns and cities. Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht, Haarlem, Eindhoven, den Bosch and more all had legal (permitted by the mayor under strict conditions) demonstrations against the lockdown and curfew. Some of those present were "normal folk" who arrived with placards to protest the measures. They were joined by local football hooligans and like minded thugs. They were joined by the hard right. They were joined by the Conspiracy theorists. Of course, there were the "agitators" as well. You know the sort, we've seen their type at football since te early 70s. At the forefront, goading the "opposition" and winding up their own and, when it kicks off, they retreat a safe distance to enjoy their handywork. Eindhoven Station was wrecked and all the shops plundered. There was also a hospital attacked.

Monday was a repeat of Sunday with another hospital getting attacked as well as riots in all of the major towns and cities.

Urk was quiet last night.

All organised. They message one another on "Telegram". Apparently it's messaging service that, quite handily, deletes messages automatically to the extent that the police, so far, don't know how, or even if, they can retrieve the images to trace the culprits. They do, however, have a lot of video and CCTV footage and that is being minutely scrutinised with facial recognition software to help identify as many rioters as possible. The police have already spotted lots of traffic on Telegram about further riots this evening.

We shouldn't be surprised that it happened. In the past 6 months we've seen similar in France, Germany, Italy and elsewhere.

How long before it hits the UK?

[Andy_Faber]

Yes I saw that on an internet feed last eve. Hopefully not coming our way but time will tell

[ramAnag]

Caught it this morning on Sky...which in turn probably means there will be some who wish to emulate such scenes in the UK.
More concerned about later in the year. Cold, snowy and wet here at the moment (the moment being since mid October!), MA.
As you may remember, our home grown rioters tend to favour balmy Spring and Summer nights.

[MadAmster]

There's been quite a bit of "decent riot in [town name] but I'm sure we can do 'better' "

Copycats wanting to outdo others. Thus far my village and the adjoining town haven't seen any "bovver".

[Trickytreesreds]

Depends on who's doing the rioting here, before any action is taken, if past riots/protests are to be judged

[Geoff Parkstone]

Its probably Donald Trump stirring it up, he is the "new Snowball". That way he can get more peaceable Cloggies to join the gun lobby and perhaps send them a few voting machines at the next presidential election

[Ram59]

The surprising fact so far, is that one of these raves attended by 100s of people, hasn't turned into a riot during a police raid. Trouble is, although I don't agree with media censorship, their reporting of such instances doesn't help the overall picture and only gives people ideas.

The media sometimes have a difficult balance to strike when reporting a 'story', I would imagine that there were many 'stories' during WWII, which didn't get reported at the time.

[Geoff Parkstone]

I share that surprise Ram but, rather like the wedding in Stamford Hill, it looks like these big brave lockdown breakers prefer to run or slip away into the night rather than pay the £ 200 personal fine. I had thought "more" of them than that, but perhaps hardcore protesters will be tougher to break than people simply selfishly wanting a good time.

The best way to stop these lockbreakers would be to sent unmasked people with covid round to the houses / families of said revellers to ensure at least they and their kin were exposed to the virus. Then let nature take its course. Perhaps then they will take the lockdown seriously

[swaledale]

Caught it this morning on Sky...which in turn probably means there will be some who wish to emulate such scenes in the UK.
More concerned about later in the year. Cold, snowy and wet here at the moment (the moment being since mid October!), MA.
As you may remember, our home grown rioters tend to favour balmy Spring and Summer nights.

I'm surprised we haven't heard more from "end the lockdown" Farage, but then if you can't get more than a dozen on a Brexit march doubt he'd be able to organise a riot!

[MadAmster]

A piece on the news just now. In den Bosch this afternoon a group of eejits entered the town ventre shopping mall with the intention of running amok. They hadn't reckoned on FC Den Bosch supporters not wanting their town damaged any further and they had met up there to protect the shops. The rioters took one look at the den Bosch "crew" and tactically withdrew.........