A video of violence showing the maltreatment of a man on a tram in the Netherlands has put Dutch politicians on alert. The leader of the Dutch Freedom Party, Geert Wilders, commented on the crime on the short message service X (formerly Twitter), saying: “Arrest, lock up and throw away the key.” The local voters’ association “Heart for The Hague” spoke of “crazy, lawless savages” and called for “a kind of black book” with house bans for violent offenders on public transport and increased deployment of conductors.
The video, which was shared thousands of times on social media over the weekend, shows a group of youthful-looking people beating and harassing a man on a tram in The Hague. The local police department reported that the attack took place on Friday evening. In the short clip, which was first posted on Snapchat and then shared by the Dutch video portal “Dumpert”, there are multiple kicks and punches against the victim. Some viewers also point out a possible stabbing attack with an unknown weapon. Some users suspect from the victim’s behaviour that he might have been disabled.
The police could not give any information about the perpetrators, but the dark skin colour of some of the attackers caused speculation that they might have been migrants. The right-wing party “Forum voor Democratie” wrote on X: “This kind of misery is what you call for when you, like the VVD (editor’s note: currently the governing party), open the borders wide.”
Niederlande: Brutales StraĂenbahn-PrĂŒgelvideo schockiert das Netz (jungefreiheit.de)