Tension in Nieuw-West ahead of Remembrance Day with increased security measures for National Memorial

There are still no signs of possible disorder on Remembrance Day and the two minutes of silence on May 4 in Nieuw-West, but the tension is also visible in that community. “I would be very disappointed if someone showed up during the two minutes of silence. Have it in your heart not to do it and have the respect to be a memory together,” said the chairman of the Nieuw-West region, Emre Ünver, in the Politics of the Park at AT5.

Today, Mayor Femke Halsema announced additional measures for the National Memorial on Dam Square. Entrance locks will be installed and the maximum number of visitors will be halved to 10,000 people. People are also not allowed to bring flags and sound amplification devices. Halsema is taking this step because the ongoing tension in the Middle East could cause disorder, such as demonstrations.

The ongoing tension and violence in the Middle East is also affecting Nieuw-West. Ünver: “It creates a lot of tension and if you don’t take care of polarization. Humans are full of emotion and suffering. If you don’t find a good way to keep the conversation going, it will cause more and more people. turn their backs on each other.”

Warning

Several local commemorations will be held in Nieuw-West on May 4. “We currently have no indication of a counter-demonstration or action. It has always been good in recent years. People are very alert in the period leading up to Memorial Day,” said Ünver.

Next week the chairman of the district will have a meeting with the mayor on how to deal with local memories. “A package of similar measures at fifty to sixty places in Amsterdam seems difficult to me. Our aim every year is to ensure that civil servants, an administrator, a representative and a community police officer are present at the local memorial. There are also neighborhood mothers and youth workers who are actively involved.”

Ünver is worried about the possibility of someone breaking the two minutes of silence. “The only thing I can do other than take action is to ask people to ask themselves how you relate to this. I chose not to break my silence and not to to take care of the person who breaks the silence.”

And: “You can bring everything together here and now, but I think: remembering the dead, I hope that everyone feels the end of the that and saying: that cannot distinguish us from each other. it would be a shame if someone looked during those two minutes of silence.

Attention to Gaza

At a memorial in De Baarsjes, the substantial program is extended. The invitation for the commemoration literally says: “In the context of ‘never again’, attention is also paid to the sadness surrounding the events in Gaza.”

Ünver believes that May 4th is about the victims of the Second World War and the impact it had on, as he calls it, ‘our national identity’. “There will be a lot of people on squares, some of them thinking about Bachmut, Gaza or the October 7 attack in Israel,” said the district chairman.

He continues: “I’m not part of the thought police. The government has set it up this way, it is not going to control people’s conscience or thoughts. Above all, I would like to plead not to make this a distribution issue. We remember their suffering together.”

Watch the entire broadcast of AT5’s Park Politics at the top of this article, in which the president of the region Emre Ünver will also discuss the statements of his management adviser Tofik Dibi on X.