And as a civil democratic country, unlike Turkey, we have allowed a demonstration march, requested by 3 Turkish organizations, for 'freedom of expression' (as a reaction to 'police violence') to take place tomorrow in Rotterdam between 17:00-19:00h.
Well, according to local news sources,
"the Pro-Turkish demonstration in Rotterdam, planned for this Friday, has been retracted by the organizers.
A spokesperson for the city confirmed that. Earlier this day, Mayor Aboutaleb had agreed with the request for the protest march. The demonstration was requested by 3 Turkish organizations who want to plea for the right of free speech of Turks in the Netherlands.
The organization claims that they cannot vouch for the safety of the participants. That page has now been removed from Facebook. According to the website DutchTurks.nl various Turk-Dutch organizations have supposedly announced that they would not participate in the demonstration."
EDIT after new information: The reason for canceling might have to do with tensions between different factions of Turkish oriented Dutch citizens. That's the very reason that the previous weekend police had to take the security measures to avoid confrontations between rivaling groups. There are groups that are Pro Erdogan, and they a.o. snitch on other groups and label them as Gülen supporters, which results in arrests in Turkey of family members because Erdogan claims that Gülen was responsible for the failed coup. Attempts by the Mayor to get the groups around one table to discuss the issues and reduce tension have failed sofar, for months already.
EDIT: Apparently the Mayor succeeded today in getting different factions around the table, although no transcripts or list of participant's names will be published, to protect the participants again retaliatory actions.
A bit of a strange development, but of course nobody is obliged to protest, and nobody wants to escalate things further (except Turkey).
Cheers,
Bart