PROTESTS erupted in several Dutch cities yesterday in the third night of unrest over the Dutch government’s coronavirus restrictions, police and local media said.

Demonstrators set off fireworks and vandalised property in the northern cities of Groningen and Leeuwarden, in Enschede to the east and Tilburg to the south, they said.

“Several small groups are destroying things in the centre,” a Groningen police spokeswoman told AFP.

“Riot police are present in the centre to restore order.”

Authorities issued an emergency order in Enschede, near the German border, ordering people to stay off the streets, police said on Twitter.

“Five people have just been arrested in the city centre for incitement and public violence. Our call is to go home,” the police said.

A football match in the nearby city of Leeuwarden was briefly disrupted after supporters, who are barred from games because of the Covid restrictions, threw fireworks into the ground, Dutch media reported.

The unrest started on Friday night when a demonstration against the coronavirus rules in the port city of Rotterdam turned into a full-scale riot during which police opened fire, with four people injured by bullets.

Rioters threw fireworks and stones at police, and burned bicycles and mopeds in The Hague on Friday night.

More than 100 people have been arrested around the country and at least 12 people have been injured during the three days of protests so far. – AFP, November 22, 2021.