Plaats een aanvulling
Report of actions against ID-checks in Amsterdam on the 13th of august
Wanneer: 22/08/2014 - 17:10
On wednesday august 13th, a group of people decided to intervene when cops carried out another prejudiced, supposedly preventive ID-check.
On wednesday august 13th, a group of people decided to intervene when cops carried out another prejudiced, supposedly preventive ID-check. These checks have been happening more often recently, and the rivierenbuurt cops are notorious for it. Already during the time of the Vechtstraat/Amstelkade squats it happened regularly that people were randomly stopped and asked for their ID's, just for looking not-dutch or not-white and/or alternative.
Officially cops are only allowed to ask for ID if there is an explicit reason, i.e. something has already happened and you are either a suspect or a witness. Though they´ve fabricated the weirdest excuses ("you carry a bag, that could theoretically be stolen"), often they do not even bother telling you, but still threaten to arrest you if you do not ID yourself. Let it be clear that the real struggle is for a world with no cops and no IDs. However, this new practice is yet another alarming development.
A call came in that again someone was stopped by cops for no apparent reason, and since a fairly large group was not far away these people decided to intervene. This was successful. Later there was another call that the same thing was happening to someone else. Again the group went over and also this person was able to get away. However, this time the group was followed more intensely and close to the RAI the group was blocked in, several people were grabbed and beaten, and three people were arrested (not, however, the person who initially got harassed by these cops).
Cops were even more violent than usual and it was clear that this was taken personally. Resisting their fascist practices of stopping and ID'ing people based on their appearance had hit a sensitive spot. This shows all the more how important these kinds of actions are. Although three people got arrested (and two more at the noise demo that same night) the intervention was successful.
All of the arrestees were released two days later, friday evening. They are summoned to court, and in their interest it is not appropriate to go into more details than above.
Hopefully this still makes things a bit more clear. [mod.: this is a addition to an earlier post: https://www.indymedia.nl/node/24220 ]
Destroy what destroys you!
A.C.A.B.