MPs push for legal changes after pro-Hamas demonstration on Dam

MPs are calling for a bill criminalising support for terrorist organisations to be pushed through faster, after demonstrators carried a “We support Hamas” banner onto the Dam on October 7, the third anniversary of the attacks in Israel.

Police and prosecutors judged that doing so was not illegal under current law. Police later stopped the marchers from heading towards the city’s Jewish quarter, home to the Portuguese Synagogue, the Jewish Museum and the Holocaust Names Monument.

Around 150 people were part of the group, according to Het Parool, with some chanting “Long live the 7th of October”. Some also carried a banner from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PLFP), which is also on the EU terrorist list.

Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema described the event “shocking and distasteful” but noted that the protests were not illegal.

Protestors only have to notify a local council to hold a demonstration, and authorities can stop or intervene in one if it poses a threat to local safety or order.

Rival political figures have criticised the lack of intervention on Halsema’s part, with JA21 MP Ingrid Coenradie branding the decision to allow the protest “appalling”.

Orthodox Protestant SGP MP Diederik van Dijk submitted written questions to the justice minister David Van Weel asking why the protest was not broken up sooner.

A bill is already in parliament, submitted by Van Weel in June, proposing 3 new offences: glorifying the most serious terrorist crimes, distributing material that glorifies them, and publicly expressing support for banned terrorist organisations, which would carry a maximum sentence of 2 years in prison.

Van Weel amended the bill to meet objections from coalition party D66, which had long opposed it, so that support would only be punishable if it is aimed at winning others over to an organisation’s terrorist goals.

Peace organisation PAX has called for the bill to be scrapped, warning the law could be used against activists, journalists and protesters, and pointed to developments in the UK.

There, at least 3,070 people had been arrested by the end of April this year for showing support for Palestine Action, after the government banned the group as a terrorist organisation.

In 2024, around 320 people were arrested in Amsterdam after Halsema broke up a pro-Palestinian protest held on the same day as an October 7 commemoration on the Dam.