ELSC Submits Objection Against Dutch Government’s Proposal to Ban Face Coverings at Demonstrations
The European Legal Support Center (ELSC) has submitted an objection to a bill from the Dutch government that aims to prohibit face coverings at demonstrations. If implemented, the law will endanger protestors mobilising against the Dutch government’s complicity in genocide and settler colonialism in Palestine. The ELSC encourages everyone, both residents and organisations in the Netherlands, to submit objections to this latest attempt to suppress dissent. This can be done via the public consultation portal until Sunday, 22 February 2026.
The Dutch police are increasingly known for their unlawful surveillance of protestors. Back in June 2023, Amnesty International published a report exposing unlawful data collection by the Dutch police. About two and a half years later, the police surveilled 250,000 protestors at the Red Line demonstration on 5 October 2025. Just last week, the investigative media outlet De Correspondent revealed the existence of an insidious police unit called the TOOI that shadows activists even for having a sticker of the Palestinian flag on their refrigerator. Since October 2023, the ELSC has registered six house visits by the police aimed at intimidating anti-genocide protestors – and this is only the tip of the iceberg. This number also does not include the incidents the ELSC has registered that include phone calls from the police to activists or their social circles.
Protesting anonymously has become a necessity
With an increasingly fascist and unaccountable police force, anonymous protests have become a necessity. Anonymity protects individuals from (state) intimidation, doxing, (online) threats, and possible retaliation from employers, universities, and authorities abroad. Where protest carries risks of disciplinary action, workplace suspension, or threats to immigration or citizenship status, many will choose not to participate at all. Such deterrence is the point of a bill such as this one. It is part of a repressive logic that operates through intimidation and isolation to contain and suppress protest by increasing the risks of participation. The pattern in other countries, for example as documented in the ELSCs Index of Repression in Germany, leaves no doubt about the consequences of passing this bill: persecution, criminalisation, threats to immigration status, and other forms of repression. The ELSC has seen this play out in other countries, and there is little reason to expect the Netherlands to be any different, considering the systematic repression of Palestine solidarity in the country as our 2021 report already demonstrated.
The new government
While the outgoing government introduced the bill, the new, similarly right-wing, D66-led government, which begins its tenure this month, has also announced in its coalition agreement that it will amend the Public Assemblies Act (Wet Openbare Manifestaties). This makes the bill dangerous and highlights the urgency of resisting it. The draft bill is currently open for public consultation, giving residents and organisations the opportunity to respond to the proposal.
The ELSC has submitted such an objection; please find it here.
Submitting objections – and mobilising others to do the same – is possible until 22 February via this link.
