Asylum riot arrests reveal scale of outside involvement

More than four in 10 people arrested at anti-asylum protests in the Netherlands over the past 18 months travelled in from outside the area where the demonstration took place, according to analysis published by broadcaster NOS.

The finding will feed an investigation already underway by the national security service AIVD into whether the recent wave of riots is being orchestrated by ideological groups.

Asylum minister Bart van den Brink told MPs last week that the agency would examine whether there is “organised activity” behind the rallies.

NOS identified 34 local anti-asylum-centre protests across the country since January 1, 2025, at which 163 people were arrested in total. Police disclosed the home town of about two-thirds of those arrested; of those, 61 lived locally and 44 did not.

Larger national demonstrations, including last weekend’s scattered protests in nine cities, were excluded from the analysis.

Organised networks

Some of the outside interference is in plain sight. The far-right network Defend Netherlands posted a call on social media for protesters to travel to Loosdrecht on April 18, weeks before the unrest there escalated into nightly confrontations with riot police, and a local Defend chapter has since formed in the village.

The international far-right network Identitair Verzet has also turned up at protests in Loosdrecht, IJsselstein and Tilburg.

Defend Netherlands has openly advocated unrest as a protest tactic. Its representative Eldor van Feggelen told a council meeting in Uitgeest in February that violent protests were what had pushed councils to change their asylum plans.

Mayors push back

Local mayors have repeatedly pointed to outside groups as the source of the violence. Maashorst mayor Hans Van der Pas said last year that motorcycle clubs, football hooligans and people from Belgium had travelled to a protest in Uden.

Stones, glass and fireworks were thrown at officers. He described them as travelling not for the demonstration itself but “to intimidate and threaten”.

Mark Verheijen, the mayor of Wijdemeren near Hilversum, said a 34-year-old man who tried to batter the town hall door in Loosdrecht with a traffic pole on King’s Day had “travelled 50 kilometres to create chaos here”.

The man was later convicted at a fast-track hearing, although NOS reported that he had children in Loosdrecht and had been celebrating his birthday with them earlier in the day.

The pattern has also shifted in recent weeks. NOS notes that protests in Apeldoorn and Loosdrecht now repeat night after night, with crowds typically in the low hundreds, rather than the one-off flare-ups that characterised earlier protests.