{"id":20908,"date":"2025-09-22T15:28:01","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T15:28:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rnw.media\/?post_type=news&p=20908"},"modified":"2025-09-22T15:36:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T15:36:11","slug":"riotstatement","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.rnw.media\/index.php\/news\/riotstatement\/","title":{"rendered":"When Protest Becomes Riot: Streets and Media Under Threat"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

RNW Media strongly condemns the political violence , and \u00a0the attacks on media professionals in The Hague.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Saturday, September 20th, a right-wing anti-immigrant demonstration in the Netherlands turned into riots. As reported by NRC<\/a>, according to the police, the rioters used \u201cconsiderable violence against the police, journalists, and the surrounding area.”   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The riots, which began as anti-immigration protests with around 1,500 people, resulted<\/a> in at least 30 people being arrested. They asked for stricter immigration policies, particularly targeting asylum seekers. At least eight journalists reported injuries, according to PersVeilig<\/a>, the platform responsible for documenting and providing aid to journalists who report being victims of violent attacks. PersVeiling informed RNW Media that the full picture of reporters injured is in progress as reports are still coming in. To Villamedia<\/a>, Peter ter Velde, project lead for PersVeilig, described that rioters attacked the journalists \u201cfrom behind\u201d, resulting in them being severely beaten. Seven of them were wounded, and two of them needed hospital care.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Police described “large waves of violence,”<\/em> with the protesters carrying glass and stones, and also attacking two police officers.\u00a0Several police vehicles were set on fire. Windows of the D66 party office in the center of The Hague were broken. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a Dutch media development organisation with a history of over 75 years, RNW Media sees the attacks not only as an awful display of political violence, but is equally alarmed by the rapid rise of extremist digital channels and influencers, who have been able to radicalise and mobilise people, especially young white men<\/a>, to engage in violence. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we approach the national elections in October, the safety and capacity of media makers  to report and work without the fear of violence should be of utmost concern to all of us. Extremism thrives when public interest media is threatened.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An anti-immigration protest in The Hague escalated into violent clashes on the A12, leaving police and journalists injured. With 37 arrests and political leaders condemning the violence, the unrest raises urgent questions about immigration, safety, and press freedom ahead of the elections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":20909,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20908","news","type-news","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rnw.media\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/20908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rnw.media\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rnw.media\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rnw.media\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rnw.media\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20908"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rnw.media\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rnw.media\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rnw.media\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}