The UN Special Rapporteur on torture has strongly criticized police action during corona demonstrations. He makes a comparison with the American George Floyd, who was killed during his arrest.

UN rapporteur Nils Melzer writes on Twitter, with images of corona demonstrations last year in The Hague and last Sunday in Amsterdam: “This is one of the most disgusting images of police brutality I’ve seen since George Floyd.” Melzer believes that they should be prosecuted for torture.

Conclusions without research

President Gerrit van de Kamp of the police union ACP has been informed that Melzer is already interested. “I thought: ‘I have done the report, he has done the basics, he will have thoroughly researched it, because that seems logical to me if you use these texts’. Only there is no research until my first, he has done it at the by images.”

“In the Netherlands, we first investigate cases,” says Van de Kamp. “To pull all this content now, that’s going way too fast as far as I’m concerned.” Van de Kamp also points out that 2 will certainly be prosecuted for performing last year during a demonstration on the Malieveld in The Hague. UN Watch has asked for the UN rapporteur to resign.

‘Oil on the fire’

Associate professor of police and security studies Jaap Timmer finds Melzer’s tone very harsh. “It would have been here if the UN had come here with a questioning attitude. What is going on here? Is there anything we can help with?” says Timmer.

“Now it’s throwing on the fire, because certain groups will use this to start even more how terrible the police are dealing with the current corona circumstances.”

Police officers going to do something else

ACP chairman Van de Kamp says that Melzer’s statements have ‘fallen badly’ during performances. “All that added up with water that happened in the past period – both in corona time and with old and new – we notice that this sometimes causes the flooding.”

“They are tired of that constantly, whatever they do, it never good is. They’re like ‘what does it actually do that we do? We have to think again whether we want to continue with this work in this way,” says Van de Kamp.

“Police is the punch bag”

There is a problem, Timmer recognizes, with violence. We are failing to bring those two extremes together and the UN, which has just that much experience in it, would be so welcome with that approach.”

As a police investigator in the field of the use of force, he feels ‘reasonably alone’. “We can all conclude that the supervision of police action in the Netherlands is not very well developed. We could gain a lot there.”

Pleased

Control Alt Delete who is committed to fair and effective law enforcement and disproportionate force, is just happy with this agreement from Melzer. “We are pleased that this disproportionate violence is now also in the sights of the UN rapporteur,” said Dionne Abdoelhafiezkhan of the organization.

“Any comparison is fierce, but we think the main thing is that law enforcement uses less force and the government uses force in a transparent way.”

‘Research is already underway’

ACP chairman Gerrit van de Kamp thinks it is good that the UN rapporteur is investigating police brutality in various countries. Melzer will visit the Netherlands later this year. “It would have been better that by the time he was here, he’d gotten all the information, than come to a conclusion, because there’s a lot more sides to this story.”

“This man must be received in the Netherlands, it is important to speak to him,” says head teacher Timmer. “We have to provide him with data with what is already happening in breadth. And that, in the example he cited, a criminal investigation is already underway.”