[Officially it is called The Netherlands, but I always think of the Dutch as Holland – even though it is technically wrong. The following stuff is from someone I know well in Holland. Jan]

The pictures are from today. I watched a video stream and saw some people in some soldiers’ uniforms. Maybe it was some veterans.

But sure it is not the army who is protecting the protestors against the police.

This has happened in countries like Poland at the end of the communist regime when the police are killing innocent people. We have not reached that state yet. But the image with the police dog is really terrifying. Some months ago something the same happened and there is a criminal case against the policeman. Probably he will not be punished, but at least it is a sign that the police cannot do anything they like. Though it is absurd to take these trained fighting dogs to unarmed protesters. These dogs should be used against terrorists with a bomb vest on their body.

When you want to demonstrate, you don’t need to have permission, but normally you inform the city, so they can facilitate the demonstration, or maybe choose another day or place or so.
The demonstration was registered but the municipality only gave permission for a small demonstration. On the same day there would be a strike by the ME. The demonstration was banned. And then the police withdrew the strike. It was a preconceived game. Instead of a demonstration, people would gather to ‘drink coffee’. That is not forbidden. There was a huge amount of police present and it seems as if there was a push for confrontation.

There are also pictures of piles of stones that might have been put there so the demonstrators would use them as projectiles after an escalation. This has been done in the USA as well. But it is difficult to prove who put them there and for what reason. But new years eve is normally a day that everything that can be used to burn or as projectiles are removed.