Prime minister Mark Rutte has come under fire for failing to fully condemn the racism and violence directed at anti-Zwarte Piet demonstrators last weekend.

Rutte told reporters on Monday that the angry mobs who attacked people demonstrating against the blackface Zwarte Piet tradition at this year’s Sinterklaas processions were ‘asos’ or anti-socials, but failed to explicitly condemn the racist violence.

Several newspaper editorials and politicians were quick to accuse the prime minister  of pandering to pro-Piet activists and for failing to fully support the right to protest.

GroenLinks leader Jesse Klaver said the weekend’s problems had not been caused by ‘peaceful demonstrations’. ‘Violence, racism and intimidation were the problem,’ Klaver said. ‘If you are going to debate the right to demonstrate in this context, you are rewarding this behaviour. Call it racism and don’t look away.’

The NRC newspaper said in an editorial that the prime minister had failed to understand what had really happened this weekend. ‘This was the first Sinterklaas procession which was marred by unadulterated racist insults. And it is not too much to ask the prime minister to openly distance himself from racism.’

Football hooligans

The worst violence was in Eindhoven, where an estimated 250 football hooligans and pro-Piet activists surrounded a small group of demonstrators on Saturday, throwing eggs at them and hurling racist and sexist abuse. In Tilburg on Sunday, police arrested 44 pro-Piet demonstrators to stop them attacking a small anti-Piet demonstration.

In Nijmegen, The Hague, Leeuwarden and Den Helder anti-blackface activists were unable to hold their protests, or had their demonstration cut short, because of the threat of attacks.

Ban demonstrations

On Monday evening, Klaas Dijkhoff, who leads Rutte’s VVD party in parliament, placed a message on Facebook in which he called on mayors to ban demonstrations during the Sinterklaas processions.

‘Yes, you have the right to protest,’ he wrote. ‘But you can also think about how you deal with your opinons and rights. If we all start demanding our rights all the time, the Netherlands will not be a better country.’

The VVD leader, who recently called for tougher jail terms for people from problem neighbourhoods who commit crimes, went on to say he is sick of the Zwarte Piet discussion ‘with its extremists on both sides’. ‘I want the extremists to respect the fact that they are the exceptions,’ Dijkhoff said.

Racism

Just as Dijkhoff and Rutte have been criticised for failing to fully condemn the violence, ChristenUnie leader Gert-Jan Segers was praised for his ‘well-reasoned’ position, in which he slammed the ‘sick-making racism’ shown by this weekend’s activists.

Segers, in a Facebook post, came down firmly on the side of the sooty-faced Piet. ‘This Piet is the triumph of consensus,’ he wrote on Facebook. ‘He has a sooty face due to a traditional element in the Sinterklaas story, the chimney.’

Television presenter Dieuwertje Blok, who fronts the nightly Sinterklaasjournaal news show, also condemned the actions of the pro-Piet activists.

‘The agression showed by some pro-Piet demonstrators is bizarre,’ she told chat show DWDD. ‘This is not setting an example to children, and the children they are doing it for, have no problem with different Piets.’

Children

Jerry Afriyie, one of the activists hit by eggs in Eindhoven, said the the prime minister had been ‘unable to bring himself to differentiate between the people who celebrated racism, nazism, facism and sexism and the people protesting about their disgusting ideas.’

‘I think it is going to be some time before I can tell my children “look, there is your prime minister”,’ Afriyie said.