Activists blocking the police boat.
With a lot of noise on the land and boats in the water, more than 50 activists of the No Border Camp have blocked the water police in Rotterdam today. The rubber boats were parked in front of the police boat and on the shore people stood in front of the entrance of the police station.
The police was somewhat surprised by the action. They pulled up the bridge the activists had used to walk to the police station and stated it would remain open “for a few hours”. They probably did this with the intention of keeping the demonstrators at one spot, but this did not disturb the demo. For a minute it looked like the cops would arrest the activists in the boats, but at the end of their action they managed to get ashore safe. There they were pulled up again by the other cheering demonstrators, who also were shouting anti police slogans. Because the bridge was still opened up, they expanded their demo with a march to the next bridge and they handed out flyers to people passing by.
The police station at the St. Jobsweg 6 is a very important part of the deportation machine. Many stowaways who arrive in Rotterdam, hidden in a ship, get arrested and detained directly. The water police is hunting down people and is thus structurally blocking the freedom of movement of everybody.
