Pregnant woman thrown to ground at Zeist asylum shelter was trying to ask cop a question
The heavily pregnant woman who was thrown to the ground by a Dutch police officer at an asylum shelter in Zeist two weeks ago says she was “just trying to ask the officers a question.” She wanted to know if she could go with her husband, who was being arrested by the police, because she couldn’t stay alone due to her advanced pregnancy, she told the news channel Al Jazeera. The woman’s daughter has since been born. The child is in good health.
A viral video of the arrest shows the woman and a man standing in a hallway at the asylum shelter in Zeist, surrounded by police officers. An officer with a police dog roughly grabs the woman by her arm and throws her to the ground. Her husband then attacked the cop and was beaten by the officers at the scene.
The woman told Al Jazeera that she just wanted to know if she could go with her husband. “I spoke English, although my English isn’t very good. The police officer responded to me in Dutch, or something else. I don’t know, I didn’t understand him, and he didn’t understand me.”
“They may have thought that I was being defiant, but I wasn’t. I was just asking an ordinary question,” she said. “Even if we were in the wrong, even if they believed we were in the wrong, neither my husband nor I deserved this violence or this level of brutality against us.”
“All I want is for there to be a full and transparent investigation which reveals the full truth, and that anyone who exceeded their authority and used violence without any justification is held accountable.”
The police officer involved said that he did not know the woman was pregnant and would have treated her differently if he had been aware, the Dutch police said in a statement. According to the police, officers asked the woman multiple times “to leave for her safety.” When she did not comply, an officer grabbed her by the arm and pulled her backward, causing her to fall, the police said.
The police were at the asylum shelter in response to a report of threats and vandalism. A COA employee allegedly took a bread knife from the man, a Palestinian asylum seeker from Gaza. The police reportedly thought that he had another knife, but that proved not to be the case.
The police are investigating the officers’ use of force. The police said that they “have confidence in the professionalism of our colleagues and realize that they make choices under high pressure day in and day out.”
