Police in the Netherlands arrested 154 fans of AZ Alkmaar football club on Saturday for chanting anti-Semitic chants on the subway in Amsterdam. accused to have disturbed public order and insulted a group of people on the basis of their race and religion (insult), an offense under the penal code of the Netherlands.
The 154 fans were stopped on their way to watch Ajax-AZ Alkmaar at the Johan Cruijff Arena, a match valid for the Dutch championship which ended 0-0. Ajax, the most successful and famous team in the country, has a fan base that identifies with its Jewish origins, also derived from the many Jews who lived in Amsterdam before the Second World War and from the fact that the city’s ghetto located in an area near the stadium. According to the police, the fans continued to sing anti-Semitic chants and slogans despite repeated requests to stop: they were stopped once they got off at the Strandvliet station, the one closest to the stadium.
Of the 154 people arrested, 11 spent the night in jail on suspicion of having destroyed the windows of some shops and of violence against police officers.
Saturday’s is not the first episode of this type: the link between Ajax and Judaism has led to episodes of anti-Semitic discrimination on several occasions. Ma Naomi Mestrum, director of the Israel Information and Documentation Center, an organization in the Netherlands that deals with anti-Semitism, he said that it is rare for the police to intervene immediately, stopping the fans directly on the spot, and that measures are usually taken at a later time following complaints.
Ajax was founded in 1900 and has become associated with Judaism especially since the fifties. Throughout its history the team has had some notable Jewish players, two Jewish presidents in the 1960s and 1970s, and some Jewish people who own shares in the company that owns the team.
Over the years, the association between Ajax and Judaism has led to an ever stronger polarization among the fans: it has happened on several occasions that fans of teams opposing Ajax made Nazi salutes or made anti-Semitic chants, praising for example to the Shoah. For its part, Ajax’s more radical supporters have responded by adopting ever more openly pro-Jewish or pro-Israel slogans and symbols, such as the Stars of David and Israeli flags.
Saturday’s arrests came two days after National Day of Remembrance, which commemorates people in the Netherlands who died during World War II, including Jews who died in Nazi concentration camps.
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