Photo Resource Former student and now researcher at WUR Fernando Gabriel Garcia Teruel was at the clearance of the pro-Palestine encampment. He feels that unnecessary violence was used and asks, among other things, why the storm was used as an argument.
After six months of the encampment, the bridge between Forum and Atlas is ‘cleared’, but the gap in between seems bigger than ever. On Wednesday, November 27, I was there when the encampment was evicted, and together with other WUR staff and students, I was unnecessarily beaten by the police.
I finished my masters in May, just when the encampment was set, and started working as a researcher in October. I have not been truly engaged with the encampment and cannot be considered, to any extent, part of it. I sincerely sympathise with it (with some reservations) and admire the people actively involved. Overall, I share the goal of ending the Palestinians’ suffering and the Western institutions’ hypocrisy, WUR included.
On Wednesday night a message that the encampment was being evicted appeared, asking for help to save personal belongings and show support. When we arrived, more than an hour after all started, around 15 to 20 WUR staff and students were there, some active participants in the encampment and others were there to help and as bystanders.
Workers were picking up everything, throwing it in a container; the police were watching. We were asked by someone to save some banners, so we started untying knots, a policeman even offered his knife to facilitate the removal.
Later, the only thing missing was one tent under which some people stood, aiming to keep the last reminisce of the encampment. A student got grabbed out of the tent, and others followed by their foot. They were showing peaceful resistance: not confronting, not violently clamping, simply not willing to move.
The Executive Board, as I briefly chatted on Thursday morning with our rector Carolien, was worried about the windstorm that took place that Wednesday, and about Brick, the last man sleeping on the encampment. They tried to warn Brick and the encampment since Monday about the storm and the upcoming cleaning up but didn’t find anyone. The people from the encampment agreed there was no notification.
Assuming that no one was to be found in the encampment, why wait until Wednesday night to take action? Why so shady at night and not in plain sight during the day before or after the storm?
On the eviction night, as some were passively resisting in the tent, pulling and holding between police and activists started to take place. Suddenly a police officer, tall and big, started shouting ‘MOVE!’ to a female staff colleague, who was there as a bystander and standing completely out of the way from the tent. The policeman violently and disproportionately pushed her. She stood up and as she walked or got pushed away giving her back to the officer, he grabbed his police stick and hit her on the side with so much strength and anger, leaving her with a numb and bruised arm.
Everyone started booing and asking the police to stop, many started filming. I was also out of the way, standing next to a police officer who asked me to move out of the bridge. He started pushing me and I told him that I was moving and that there was no need for violence. The big guy was willing to hit our WUR colleague again, I told him to stop. He pushed me, shouted, and gave me two aggressive hits with the stick, one on the hand and one on the shoulder.
Others also got hit and were violently dragged or pushed. No one was willing to fight, except the police, full of anger and wicked as they are. There was no justification for all this unnecessary violence.
The spokesperson, the only representative from the board to be found, did nothing. Watched and kept being on the phone. Disgusting. How could the board allow this to happen? Why did they agree to open the campus to violence by welcoming the police? Because, by law, police cannot come onto campus unless some WUR authority invites them.
In the shadiest and most suspicious way, they decided to bring physical violence to their staff and students, activists or not. They talk about dialogue, nuances, transparency, about improving the world… but once they have to face a concrete reality right outside their office, they turn away, and bring unnecessary violence to the heart of our campus.
As I believe universities should be places for critical reflection, I can only hope that the gap between Atlas and Forum is bridged. I hope that we can dialogue transparently on our concerns, political as they might be, and build collective criteria for collaborations and actions on what WUR as an institution, and as a community, stands for. To take that step towards reconciliation, the board should recognise their mistakes, apologize, and start building towards reparation. They brought violence when only peace was claimed.
In solidarity,
A concerned member of this community.
Fernando Gabriel Garcia Teruel, researcher at APS and KTI
This is shocking and disgusting. Is there any follow-up or follow-through on this from the Board, or anyone else? Thanks for this letter, Fernando.
Monique Weemstra
This I posted Friday on LinkedIn and think it fits here well…
“I am deeply troubled by the video shared below of events on the campus of Wageningen University & Research … the persons being repeated bludgeoned and dragged there by police are WUR students who present no threat and act with no violence. we encourage our students to think critically and creatively. We aspire to foster emphatic people with genuine interest and care for the challenges we face. We have a great duty of care to our students and each other for that matter. But THIS. This kind of treatment of our students is authorised on our campus. Who authorised this I ask!? I challenge this person to step forward and speak to us faculty about our duties of care…”
It is clear who authorized this, so @Rens, we grab a coffee at some point and discuss how I should deal with obstinate students. At which point you think it ok I call in someone to beat them