Man arrested over antisemitic slogans projected in Capelle aan den IJssel
A 30-year-old man from Gouda was arrested on Thursday evening in Capelle aan den IJssel following the laser projection of anti-Semitic texts onto a building, the police announced on Friday.
Police Several reports were received around 11 pm on Thursday about a blue laser-projected text on a white office building in the Rivium business park in the municipality of Capelle aan den IJssel, located in the Rotterdam metropolitan area.
A video posted on Twitter shows the slogan "Joden runden de slavernij, blanken schaften het af," translating to "Jews ran slavery, whites abolished it."
The text shown on the building used language previously associated with white supremacy and far-right nationalism, by blaming the Jews for all slavery in the past, and falsely claiming that white people were not linked to past history of slavery. Last week, King Willem-Alexander formally apologized for Dutch historical ties to the slave trade.
After an investigation to determine the probable direction of the projection, police officers located a man nearby with the necessary projection equipment. The 30-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of discrimination and incitement to hatred.
The man remains in custody at a police holding facility and will be questioned on Friday.
Agnes Maassen, the chairwoman of the D66 party in Rotterdam, labeled the text as "repulsive" on Twitter. "It's important that the perpetrators are quickly identified. I plan to address this in the council with written questions," she wrote.
A laser projector to display hate speech and statements promoting discriminatory behavior was already used on the Erasmus Bridge in Rotterdam during the nationally televised New Year’s Eve countdown. In February, racist texts were briefly projected onto the Eindhoven city hall.
