Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte condemned rioters in Rotterdam and across the Netherlands after coronavirus protests there and in Brussels descended into violence amid simmering anger at lockdown measures being put into place.
In the face of demonstrations across much of Europe against tough COVID-19 measures over the past days, authorities on Monday pleaded for patience, calm and a willingness to get a vaccine shot in the arm as infections spike upward again.
“Not able to work where you want work, to be where you want to be. That’s not what we stand for, that’s not freedom,” said Eveline Denayer, who was at Sunday’s march in Brussels, which drew a crowd of over 35,000.“We live in Western Europe and we just want to be free, how we were before,” she said. “The rising numbers are unfortunately fueling vaccine hesitancy, and we all need to take a firm stand against this,” said EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides. However, she said the spike is mainly to blame on those who refuse to have a shot.Breakthrough infections and deaths among the vaccinated happen, though at far lower rates, according to officials.
“I realize that there are a lot of tensions in society because we have been dealing with all the misery of coronavirus for so long,” Rutte said. But he stressed the rioters were something completely different, producing “a pure explosion of violence directed against our police, against our firefighters, against ambulance drivers.”
The protests come as a fourth wave of infections is locking down Austrians and forcing renewed restraints in many European nations on anything from working in the office to drinking at bars.
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