Dutch Police Seize Scores at Pro-Palestinian Rally after Football Unrest

 Pro-Palestinian protesters face Dutch police during a banned demonstration in Amsterdam, Netherlands November 10, 2024. (Reuters)
Pro-Palestinian protesters face Dutch police during a banned demonstration in Amsterdam, Netherlands November 10, 2024. (Reuters)
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Dutch Police Seize Scores at Pro-Palestinian Rally after Football Unrest

 Pro-Palestinian protesters face Dutch police during a banned demonstration in Amsterdam, Netherlands November 10, 2024. (Reuters)
Pro-Palestinian protesters face Dutch police during a banned demonstration in Amsterdam, Netherlands November 10, 2024. (Reuters)

Dutch police took away more than 100 pro-Palestinian protesters on Sunday who defied a ban on demonstrations in Amsterdam following clashes this week involving Israeli football fans.

Hundreds of demonstrators gathered in the capital's Dam Square, chanting "Free Palestine" and "Amsterdam says no to genocide", in reference to the Gaza war.

Israel denies allegations of genocide in its more than year-long offensive against Palestinian group Hamas.

After a local court ratified the city council's ban, police moved in, instructing protesters to leave and rounding up more than 100 of them, according to a Reuters journalist.

They were put on buses and dropped off on the outskirts of the city, police spokesperson Ramona van den Ochtend said, without confirming how many had been picked up.

One protester was taken to an ambulance bleeding.

The ban, which authorities extended for another four days until Thursday, has been in place since Friday after attacks on Israeli football supporters following a match between visiting Maccabi Tel Aviv and Ajax Amsterdam.

At least five people were injured in assaults that Dutch authorities and foreign leaders including Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced as antisemitic.

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Protest organizers said in a message on Instagram that they were outraged by the "framing" of unrest around the match as antisemitic and called the protest ban draconian.

"We refuse to let the charge of antisemitism be weaponized to suppress Palestinian resistance," they said.

Four people remain detained on suspicion of violent acts, including two minors. Another 40 people have been fined for public disturbance and 10 for offences including vandalism.

As well as suffering attacks by what the mayor called "antisemitic hit-and-run squads", visiting Israeli fans burned a Palestinian flag and used sticks, pipes and rocks in clashes with opponents, according to a video and police report.

Before the match against Ajax, Maccabi fans tore a Palestinian flag off a building in Amsterdam and chanted anti-Arab slogans on their way to the stadium. There were also reports of Maccabi fans starting fights.

Local police chief Olivier Dutilh told the court on Sunday that the protest ban was still needed as antisemitic incidents were continuing, including people being pushed out of taxis and told to show their passports on Saturday night.

The Netherlands has seen a rise in antisemitic incidents since the Gaza war began in October last year.

More than 43,000 Palestinians have been killed and millions displaced in Israel's military offensive on Gaza, according to health officials there, launched after Hamas killed 1,200 Israelis and took more than 250 hostage in a cross-border attack, according to Israel.



France Accuses Iran of ‘Repression’ in Sentence for Nobel Laureate

People cross an intersection in downtown Tehran, Iran, Monday, Feb. 9, 2026. (AP)
People cross an intersection in downtown Tehran, Iran, Monday, Feb. 9, 2026. (AP)
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France Accuses Iran of ‘Repression’ in Sentence for Nobel Laureate

People cross an intersection in downtown Tehran, Iran, Monday, Feb. 9, 2026. (AP)
People cross an intersection in downtown Tehran, Iran, Monday, Feb. 9, 2026. (AP)

France accused Iran on Monday of "repression and intimidation" after a court handed Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi a new six-year prison sentence on charges of harming national security.

Mohammadi, sentenced Saturday, was also handed a one-and-a-half-year prison sentence for "propaganda" against Iran's system, according to her foundation.

"With this sentence, the Iranian regime has, once again, chosen repression and intimidation," the French foreign ministry said in a statement, describing the 53-year-old as a "tireless defender" of human rights.

Paris is calling for the release of the activist, who was arrested before protests erupted nationwide in December after speaking out against the government at a funeral ceremony.

The movement peaked in January as authorities launched a crackdown that activists say has left thousands dead.

Over the past quarter-century, Mohammadi has been repeatedly tried and jailed for her vocal campaigning against Iran's use of capital punishment and the mandatory dress code for women.

Mohammadi has spent much of the past decade behind bars and has not seen her twin children, who live in Paris, since 2015.

Iranian authorities have arrested more than 50,000 people as part of their crackdown on protests, according to US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA).


Iran's Supreme Leader Urges Iranians to Show 'Resolve' against Foreign Pressure

Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei on (File Photo/Supreme Leader's website).
Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei on (File Photo/Supreme Leader's website).
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Iran's Supreme Leader Urges Iranians to Show 'Resolve' against Foreign Pressure

Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei on (File Photo/Supreme Leader's website).
Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei on (File Photo/Supreme Leader's website).

Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei on Monday called on his compatriots to show "resolve" ahead of the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution this week.

Since the revolution, "foreign powers have always sought to restore the previous situation", Ali Khamenei said, referring to the period when Iran was under the rule of shah Reza Pahlavi and dependent on the United States, AFP reported.

"National power is less about missiles and aircraft and more about the will and steadfastness of the people," the leader said, adding: "Show it again and frustrate the enemy."


UK PM's Communications Director Quits

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer delivers a speech at Horntye Park Sports Complex in St Leonards, Britain, February 05, 2026. Peter Nicholls/Pool via REUTERS
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer delivers a speech at Horntye Park Sports Complex in St Leonards, Britain, February 05, 2026. Peter Nicholls/Pool via REUTERS
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UK PM's Communications Director Quits

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer delivers a speech at Horntye Park Sports Complex in St Leonards, Britain, February 05, 2026. Peter Nicholls/Pool via REUTERS
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer delivers a speech at Horntye Park Sports Complex in St Leonards, Britain, February 05, 2026. Peter Nicholls/Pool via REUTERS

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer's director of communications Tim Allan resigned on Monday, a day after Starmer's top aide Morgan McSweeney quit over his role in backing Peter Mandelson over his known links to Jeffrey Epstein.

The loss of two senior aides ⁠in quick succession comes as Starmer tries to draw a line under the crisis in his government resulting from his appointment of Mandelson as ambassador to the ⁠US.

"I have decided to stand down to allow a new No10 team to be built. I wish the PM and his team every success," Allan said in a statement on Monday.

Allan served as an adviser to Tony Blair from ⁠1992 to 1998 and went on to found and lead one of the country’s foremost public affairs consultancies in 2001. In September 2025, he was appointed executive director of communications at Downing Street.