Over 40% of those arrested at anti-asylum riots came from outside the municipality
Of the suspects arrested at anti-asylum protests that turned into violence and riots since January 1 last year, 42 percent came from outside the municipality they were rioting in, NOS reports after analysing the arrest figures the police made public over the past 18 months.
Looking through police press releases and news articles, NOS tracked down at least 34 anti-asylum shelter protests in which the riot police had to intervene since January 1, 2025. The police arrested 163 people at these protests and disclosed the places of residence of two-thirds of them. 61 came from the municipality where the riot took place; 44 came from elsewhere. That amounts to 42 percent of arrested individuals being outsiders.
The figures do not include national anti-asylum demonstrations and riots, such as the far-right riots at the Malieveld in The Hague in September, or the protests in various municipalities last weekend.
The greatest distance traveled for an anti-asylum protest was covered by a 48-year-old Rotterdam resident, who participated in a “noise protest” in Heerenberg in November, 143 kilometers away from his home. Last week, an Emmen resident traveled 114 kilometers to be arrested in Apeldoorn during a demonstration in which protesters attacked a passing car, among other things.
Other outsiders came from much nearer. In Loosdrecht, in the municipality of Wijdermeren, the police arrested someone from Hilversum. Some Hilversum neighborhoods are closer to the demonstration site than other villages covered by Wijdermeren. The police also arrested someone from Kortenhoef, which falls under Wijdemeren, but is further away than several Hilversum neighborhoods.
Last week, Asylum Minister Bart van den Brink announced that the intelligence service AIVD was investigating whether there is “organization” involved in the anti-asylum protests - meaning, are organized groups pushing people at these protests to turn on the authorities or commit vandalism and public violence.
According to NOS, there are some clear external influences involved. The far-right group Defend Nederland issued a call on Facebook as early as April 18 to demonstrate in Loosdrecht. Since then, a local Defend group was established, and protesters have been showing up at the asylum shelter every night for over a month. Several of these protests turned violent, including one last week when rioters set fire to bushes outside the building while there were people inside.
In February, speaking at a municipal council meeting in Uitgeest, Eldor van Feggelen of Defend Nederland outright said that his organization believes disturbances at protests achieve results. “Where things did not remain calm, that is simply a fact; there the municipality changed its policy,” he told the councilors.
The international network Identitair Verzet has also recently surfaced at protests in Loosdrecht, IJsselsstein, and Tilburg, among others.
The NOS analysis also showed that most protests that have gotten out of hand in the past year and a half involved fairly small gatherings with 150 to 500 demonstrators. The broadcaster also noticed that recent protests are repeating themselves night after night, particularly in Loosdrecht and Apeldoorn, where a year ago they were generally one-off actions.
