hate crime

Four teenage boys were sentenced to between 80 and 160 hours of community service for assaulting a gay couple in Arnhem last year. On Monday the court in Arnhem ruled that it can not be proven that the teenagers attacked the couple with a homophobic motive, NU.nl reports.

Amsterdam mayor Jozias van Aartsen is receiving signals that the number of incidents targeting minorities in the city is on the rise, he said on Wednesday in a city council debate about a decapitated doll left at the Emir Sultan Mosque in Amsterdam Noord last week, Het Parool and AT5 report.

Two kissing women were assaulted on an Amsterdam street early on Tuesday morning. One of the victims is documentary maker Denise Kelm Soares, who is in the city for the documentary festival IDFA. She believes they were attacked because of their sexuality, Trouw reports.

A group of women went to the city center for a night out on Monday night and left a club early on Tuesday morning. The two women were attacked as they walked through the city around 4:00 a.m. 

What was a lovely holiday visiting his boyfriend in Amsterdam, ended in a nightmare for 23-year-old Kevin from Suriname and his partner. On the last night of his vacation, the two young men were attacked while walking on the Damrak in the Dutch capital. Kevin was left with a torn lip and swelling, his boyfriend had to undergo oral surgery, AT5 reports.

The police believe that the couple's attack was a hate crime. 

The police arrested a total of five teenagers, four girls and a boy, for at least two separate assaults on the Schouwburgplein in Rotterdam last week. The group of teens, 13, 14 and 15 years old, attacked a lesbian couple on Tuesday May 30th and another victim the following day, the police said in a statement.

A gay couple assaulted on Kerkstraat in Amsterdam-Centrum on Saturday night are spreading pamphlets and posted a letter in AT5 calling for witnesses to come forward. 

Gay couples in Amsterdam and Eindhoven also reported being assaulted because of their sexuality over the weekend. An 18-year-old man was arrested in connection with the Eindhoven incident. The Amsterdam police are still looking for the perpetrator. 

The couple in Amsterdam were attacked on Kerkstraat late Saturday night. They spread pamphlets in the area calling for witnesses to come forward, AD reports. The police confirmed to the newspaper that the couple reported the assault and that it may have been a hate crime.

Gay couple Jasper Vernes-Sewratan and Ronnie Sewratan-Vernes were attacked by a group of men while walking home hand in hand from a party in Arnhem during the early hours of Sunday morning. Ronnie lost four teeth and part of a fifth in the attack. Jasper got away with bruised ribs and bruises on his back and knee, RTL Nieuws reports.

On Thursday the police arrested a 24-year-old man from Amsterdam on suspicion of involvement in the aggravated assault of a gay couple in the Dutch capital in October last year, the police announced in a statement on their website. 

The assault happened on Ruijterkade on October 16th. Three young men on scooters attacked the gay couple, seemingly out of nowhere. The police believe that the couple was targeted due to their sexual orientation. One of te victims sustained a fractured skull in the attack and spent some time in the hospital.

At least six people were killed and eight others injured in an attack on a mosque during evening prayer in the Canadian city of Quebec on Sunday evening. Dutch Minister Bert Koenders of Foreign Affairs condemns the attack and expressed his sympathies to the victims and their loved ones. 

"I condemn the terrorist attack in Canada in the strongest terms", the Dutch Minister said on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Twitter account. "I sympathize with the victims of the attack on a mosque in Canada. Discrimination, exclusion and hate are never acceptable."

An 18-year-old man sustained a broken cheekbone when he and his boyfriend were attacked by a group of young people in Amsterdam early on Saturday morning. According to the police, the attack was not an anti-gay hate crime, Het Parool reports.

The couple was walking along the Spiegelgracht around 4:00 a.m. on Saturday morning when a group of young people shouted "homo" at them. The couple responded to the insult by approaching the group, according to the newspaper.