Photograph: ANP
Though the Public Prosecution Service won’t prosecute most detained activists throughout a blockade of Extinction Riot on the A12, the mayor of The Hague emphasised on Saturday that the suitable to display isn’t the identical as the suitable to interrupt the regulation.
Jan van Zanen states in a written assertion on the web site of the municipality that – after warnings – he instantly ordered the deployment of the water throwers in the beginning of the blockade and had the activists faraway from the A12/Utrechtsebaan. “As mayor, I can not tolerate giant numbers of activists blocking a (freeway) highway indefinitely so as to exert coercion. With this they goal for violations of the regulation and as many arrests as attainable,” the message states.
Earlier within the night, the Public Prosecution Service introduced that it had arrested lots of of activists, however that it could not prosecute most of them due to the “peaceable nature” of the demonstration. A spokesperson for Van Zanen explains the assertion when requested: “We intervened proper from the beginning. That could be a clear assertion. The legal prosecution is as much as the Public Prosecution Service.”
Van Zanen additionally emphasizes that the motion once more required an “monumental police capability” that might not be deployed elsewhere within the nation. I’ve nice appreciation for our policemen who got here from everywhere in the nation to finish the blockade.” Van Zanen additionally says that he’ll proceed to work to facilitate demonstrations in The Hague.
