[Squat!net]

On Friday July 14th 2005, ten people had to appear in the court of Amsterdam. They were prosecuted because of their participation in actions against the eviction of six squats in Amsterdam. Eight of them were already locked up since the evictions on Tuesday May 31st. That day around 70 people gathered in front of the Rokin squat in the center of Amsterdam. They made barricades on the street, set them on fire and blocked all traffic for hours. When the riotpolice arrived people started to attack them with stones, bottles and paintbombs. The clash on the streets went on for an hour, the eviction for five hours.
Two of the ten people that had to appear in court, were declared innocent ; seven people were convicted for 6 weeks prison (exactly the time they had spend inside already, so they were released the next day) ; and one woman got sentenced for 5 months, so she still has to spend 3 ½ months in prison ! When arrested a molotov cocktail was found on her body. Though nobody threw a molotov and there is no film or photograph footage from the police, she is convicted of throwing a molotov cocktail. All the accusations are based on the article of “public violence from a organised group”, with variations in : walking between the barricades, throwing water on police officers, throwing with objects like speaker boxes, empty beer cans, bread, molotov cocktails, fruit, a red coffee cup, bricks and pillows. During the court case the judge and the officer of justice made some remarkable political statements, that are very uncommon in dutch court. They compared the situation with “city guerrilla” because there were actions in a organised way that crossed the boundaries of violence.

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