The Antwerp police launched Operation Night Watch on Friday evening. Some social organizations are criticizing the campaign.
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Every day over the coming period, more than fifty police officers will participate in what mayor De Wever calls ‘the largest security operation in Antwerp for twenty years’.
The action officially started on Friday evening: after a briefing, patrols in combis, on motorcycles and in anonymous cars took to the streets of Deurne, Borgerhout and Antwerp-Noord from 11 pm. The action comes after several shelling and grenade attacks recently occurred in Deurne-Noord in a short time.
Anyone who is out on the street at night can be stopped and checked. Certain streets can be closed. The BearCat, an armored military vehicle, is also removed from the stable.
According to the police, this is a longer-term operation that has no specific end date for the time being. In this way, Mayor De Wever wants to ‘take maximum responsibility’. After all, the judicial investigation into the various violent crimes in the drug environment is conducted by the federal judicial police and not the local police.
Criticism
Some social organizations have reservations about the action. The Antwerp Platform Sociale MiddenveldOrganizations (APSMO) fears that Operation Night Watch may only shift or even further escalate drug violence in Antwerp.
APSMO unites more than fifty social organizations, together with J100, smart on drugs, Uit de Marge and KifKif. According to APSMO, there are other approaches that are more likely to be successful. Residents and civil society organizations must be actively involved in this, because according to the organizations that is not the case with Operation Night Watch.
‘We see a number of concrete options and proposals on which we would like to enter into further dialogue with the mayor. We argue for more community-oriented police that know the neighborhoods well and are close to citizens. It’s about working on a constructive relationship between front-line workers and police officers, so that everyone can carry out their role and assignment. ‘
Finally, the organizations warn against increasing ethnic profiling by the police. ‘Young people indicate that they are afraid of being targeted. The follow-up of COVID-19 measures in the neighborhoods led to growing tension between the police and young people. Young people think they will become the target of systematic checks instead of the ones that this operation is all about. ‘
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