18 May 2025
On 18 May, I joined more than 100,000 others at the Wij Trekken de Rode Lijn (Draw the Red Line) demonstration in The Hague. It was the largest demonstration in the Netherlands for over 20 years. We protested against the extreme right-wing Dutch government’s policies and actions regarding Palestine and their support of the Israeli government.
People were encouraged to wear red clothing, as the idea behind the demonstration was to form a human red line symbolising their demand for the Dutch Government to declare that a red line had been crossed in the Israel-Palestine conflict (official term). Public transport was chaotic due to the number of protesters travelling; I lost my friends as soon as we boarded the train from my hometown of Breda to The Hague. I spent the rest of the day as a free agent, which allowed me the freedom to follow my lens.
Gert Wilders, the leader of the PVV (Freedom Party) and a major partner in the ruling coalition government, made this statement on X: ‘Vandaag ‘n demo in DHaag tegen Israël + voor Hamas. Duizenden verwarde mensen trekken een rode lijn’ (Today a demo in Den Haag against Israel and for Hamas. Thousands of confused people drew a red line). Personally, I saw no evidence of support for Hamas at the demonstration, only calls for an end to the genocide.
