Hundreds under arrest after riots over virus curfew across Netherlands

HUNDREDS of people have been arrested after a weekend of riots across the Netherlands in which shops were looted and a Covid testing centre attacked.

Mark Rutte, the prime minister, condemned “criminal violence” yesterday after protesters against a coronavirus curfew went on the rampage in several cities.

Police used water cannon, tear gas and mounted troops to disperse rioters after protests were banned and demonstrators asked to go home.

Around 250 people have been arrested.

Although legal demonstrations against coronavirus restrictions have been taking place for months, this was the first case of widespread violence.

Rioters torched a car, looted shops and – to public horror – pelted windows at a hospital in Enschede with stones.

The riots were prompted by a national curfew preventing people from leaving their homes from 9pm to 4.30am, the first since the Second World War.

It was voted through by a parliamentary majority, even though the government last week stepped down over a domestic scandal. Other protests have reportedly been planned for forthcoming Sundays.

Trouble flared first in the small fishing village of Urk on Saturday night, when riot police were called in after youths set a drive-in coronavirus test centre on fire.

On Sunday, protests spread from Amsterdam to Eindhoven, and then 12 other locations by the evening, including The Hague.

“The violence is unacceptable,” said Mr Rutte, who is acting in a caretaker capacity until a March general election.

“This has nothing to do with protesting: it is criminal violence, and we will treat it as such. I am convinced that 99pc of the Netherlands is keeping to the rules and the curfew.

“We are not taking all of these measures for fun.

“We are fighting against a virus, and it is the virus taking our freedom.”

Mayor John Jorritsma of Eindhoven, where protesters who were told to disperse pulled knives, batons, Molotov cocktails and other weapons on police, branded rioters the “scum of the earth”. (© Telegraph Media Group Ltd 2021)