Around the World briefs
By Associated Press
Dutch lawmaker Wilders wants to deport those convicted of violence against Israeli soccer fans
THE HAGUE, Netherlands | Hard-right Dutch political leader Geert Wilders on Wednesday blamed “Moroccans” for attacks on Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam last week, asserting that they “want to destroy Jews” and recommending the deportation of people convicted of involvement if they have dual nationality.
While lawmakers condemned antisemitism and agreed that perpetrators of the violence should be prosecuted and handed harsh punishments, opposition legislators accused Wilders of “pouring oil on the fire” and said his statements during a parliamentary debate were not conducive to “a better society.”
Violence erupted in the Dutch capital before and after last week’s soccer match between Ajax Amsterdam and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Fans from both sides were involved in unrest; a number of Maccabi fans attacked a cab and chanted anti-Arab slogans while some men carried out “hit and run” attacks on people they thought were Jews, according to Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema.
After the match, parts of a large group of Maccabi supporters armed with sticks ran around “destroying things,” a 12-page report on the violence issued by Amsterdam authorities said. There were also “rioters, moving in small groups, by foot, scooter or car, quickly attacking Maccabi fans before disappearing,” it said.
Amsterdam police said five people were treated in hospital for injuries. Police detained dozens of people before the match, but there were no immediate arrests for violence after it.
On Wednesday night, hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters gathered on Amsterdam’s central Dam Square to hold a demonstration despite a new city ban on such gatherings. Large numbers of police, including some on horseback, were present and detained most of the protesters after they refused to leave, escorting them mostly peacefully into two buses and driving them away from the square.
Reports of antisemitic speech, vandalism and violence have been on the rise in Europe since the start of the war in Gaza, and tensions were high in Amsterdam ahead of the soccer match. The assaults on Maccabi fans sparked outrage and were widely condemned as antisemitic.
The violence badly tarnished Amsterdam’s long-held image as a haven of tolerance and sparked soul-searching across the country.
Wilders, whose anti-immigration Party for Freedom won elections last year and now is part of a four-party ruling coalition government, said Wednesday that on the night Amsterdam commemorated Kristallnacht, the 1938 anti-Jewish pogrom in Nazi Germany, “we saw Muslims hunting Jews on the streets of Amsterdam,” and blamed “Moroccans who want to destroy Jews.”
He gave no evidence. Police and prosecutors have not disclosed the identities of any of the suspects that were detained, in line with Dutch privacy rules.
Wilders advocated canceling the Dutch passports of people convicted of involvement in the violence — if they have a double passport — and deporting them.
Wilders, who is sometimes described as the Dutch Donald Trump because of his fierce anti-immigration rhetoric, has lived under round-the-clock protection for 20 years because of death threats from Islamic extremists. He has also long been a staunch supporter of Israel.
Some lawmakers warned that his new comments only served to deepen divisions in Dutch society.
Rob Jetten of the centrist D66 party said Wilders’ rhetoric “does not contribute in any way to healing. In no way does he contribute to bringing our country together, but he throws oil on the fire and thus does not bring solutions against antisemitism and for a better society any closer, but only further away.”
Frans Timmermans, who leads the biggest center-left bloc in parliament, agreed.
“What you are doing is just stirring things up, dividing this country when this country needs politicians who bring people together, who bring solutions closer,” Timmermans said.
In Amsterdam, a prominent Jewish member of the City Council, Itay Garmy, said that although there’s a lot of anger and fear within the Jewish community, inflammatory remarks wouldn’t help.
“Don’t use my security or my suffering or my fear as a Jew to create political gains for yourself and make your points about integration, migration or Muslim hate,” Garmy said.
From anime to fine art: Japan’s Yoshitaka Amano is celebrated
with a major retrospective
MILAN | In a career spanning more than 50 years, Japanese artist Yoshitaka Amano has gained a following as an animator, illustrator, video game creator and fine artist. All those facets are on display in the largest retrospective of his work in the West, which opened Wednesday in Milan.
The “Amano Corpus Animae” exhibition celebrates Amano as a transversal artist whose Japanese style has been infused with Western influences, from the Italian Renaissance to Marvel superheroes and Pop Art.
Curator Fabio Viola said the exhibition aims to give the 72-year-old Amano “an artistic dignity” with his first major European show.
Amano’s prolific career across media — from his start as an animator at the Tatsunoko studio at age 15 to recent work including posters celebrating Puccini’s centenary — reflects his notion that an artist is someone with many talents.
“From what I see in Renaissance artists such as Michelangelo, artists cover everything. They did sculptures, costume designs and, of course, paintings,” Amano said during a press preview on Tuesday.
Some fans may recognize his work as an animator for Tasunoko, where Amano trained making sketches of the anime version of Speed Racer before going on to create such characters as Gatchaman and Tekkaman.
Striking out on his own in the 1980s, Amano illustrated such science fantasy classics as the Vampire Hunter D novel series and made his mark in the video game arena with the Final Fantasy franchise.
The exhibition also includes more recent, and perhaps lesser-known, works: an illustration of a model for the January 2020 issue of Vogue Italia, its only cover ever not to feature a live model; an album cover for David Bowie featuring the artist and his wife, Iman; and the Candy Girl series of Pop Art and manga-inspired paintings on aluminum.
“There were people who grew up with my works in real time. Those from the 1970s, I think, will appreciate my animation. Video games for the next generation, while the art can be recognized by two or three generations,’’ Amano said.
Viola selected the 137 original works on display from Amano’s vast archive of more than 10,000 drawings, paintings and other works stored in three warehouses in Tokyo. Amano does not sell any work that has not been specifically commissioned, Viola said, and he had not seen many pieces since storing them decades ago.
“Every fan would immediately recognize his style,” Viola said. “True, it is full of influences. Whoever has a little background in art history would find art nouveau, Klimt, bites of Renaissance, or the Ukiyo-e and the traditional Japanese art prints techniques. But all of this is revisited in a way that Amano’s woman is clearly Amano’s woman.”
Trademarks include the lightly drawn eyebrows, smears of color and the brush strokes of acrylic paint, Viola said.
The retrospective was organized by Lucca Comics with the city of Milan and runs through March 1 at the Fabbrica del Vapore.
Swiss villagers pack up for evacuation over fears of another rockslide
GENEVA | Families in a tiny Swiss village were packing up Wednesday after authorities issued an evacuation order with a weekend deadline because of the threat of a possible rockslide from an Alpine mountainside overhead.
Authorities in charge of the eastern village of Brienz said in a statement Tuesday that they analyzed the potential danger with geology and natural-hazards specialists and recommended the precautionary evacuation by 1 p.m. Sunday.
Christian Gartmann, a member of the crisis management board in the town of Albula, which counts Brienz in its jurisdiction, said inhabitants of the village, with a population of 90, were making quick preparations.
A similar evacuation took place in May last year. The following month, a rockslide sent 2 million cubic meters of stone tumbling down the mountainside — but it missed the village. Another 1.2 million cubic meters still loom, leading to the new order for evacuation.
“It has begun, immediately actually. People in the village organized themselves,” Gartmann said by phone. Some were “a little bit aggressive towards us” for ordering the evacuation, he said, adding that he understood their discontent.
“No one is in favor of his own evacuation. They would love to stay in their houses. They have been living in these houses for generations and they don’t want to leave their village,” Gartmann said. “But actually, it’s the mountain that orders us to evacuate them.”
In recent days, authorities have been advising villagers to take essential items, like computers, winter wear and school and work materials, for up to six months out of town, he said.
“It’s not a total moving-out,” Gartmann said, summarizing the order to locals as “take everything that you need for the next few months. If you have some cheap … sofa at home, leave it.”
Temporary lodging out of the village, which sits in between Italian and German-speaking parts of southeastern Switzerland, has already been arranged for about three-quarters of residents, and some were staying nearby with friends or family, he said.
The main threat is posed by rocks that are already strewn along the mountainside, not a larger breakage, Gartmann said.
A controlled explosion to trigger a rockslide to reduce the risk of an uncontrolled one has been ruled out, in part because 300 tons of explosives would be needed, he said. Blasting crews would face risks, and a detonation could also affect a nearby mountain.
A severe rockslide would almost certainly destroy the village anyway, Gartmann said. Instead, work is under way to relieve water pressure under the land that has unsettled the rocks in a bid to reduce the risk and give peace of mind to residents.
The gradual erosion has taken place over 12,000 years, since the end of the last Ice Age, he said.
While authorities plan to compensate evacuees for extra costs related to their departure, no payouts are planned for damage to personal belongings “because it’s no one’s fault. It’s nature that dictates the evacuation,” Gartmann said.
Silence descends around China’s deadliest mass killing in years
as flowers cleared away
ZHUHAI, China | Online discussion about China’s deadliest mass killing in years was being censored Wednesday as authorities in a southern city cleared candles and flowers from the memorial to the 35 people dead.
Police have offered little information about the 62-year-old driver who rammed his vehicle into a sports complex in Zhuhai on Monday, mowing down people as they were exercising. They said the man, identified only by his surname of Fan, was upset about his divorce settlement. He was arrested as he tried to flee the scene.
The attack, which also severely injured 43 people, took place on the eve of the Zhuhai Airshow, sponsored by the People’s Liberation Army and held every other year. China often makes extra efforts to tightly control information around major or sensitive events.
Chinese authorities also closely monitor public discourse around major catastrophes or violence, often censoring eyewitness accounts. It took almost 24 hours after the attack for the official death toll to be released.
On Tuesday and earlier Wednesday, residents laid flowers outside the Zhuhai People’s Fitness Plaza in southern Guangdong province. Police presence was light, but the number of officers later increased.
By Wednesday afternoon, authorities had removed the flowers and candles. Uniformed and plainclothes police monitored the area and prevented visitors from gathering or taking photographs. Residents who lingered for longer than a few minutes were asked to leave.
Some visitors continued to lay flowers, but the bouquets were quickly taken away.
“May there be no thugs in heaven,” said a message seen on one bouquet before it was moved from public view. “Good deeds will be rewarded and evil deeds will be punished.”
Residents near the site expressed shock that a mass killing had happened in their neighborhood. Some questioned how a car could have entered an area meant to be restricted to vehicles. Many declined or hesitated to speak to reporters.
The sports complex was closed until further notice.
Videos, quickly censored inside China, circulated outside the Great Firewall. Most were posted by “Teacher Li,” an artist-turned-dissident who runs a X account with 1.7 million followers that posts crowdsourced videos about news in China.
Articles from Chinese media featuring interviews with survivors were quickly taken down.
“It is very shocking,” said resident Dong Chilin. “My husband goes jogging there every night. I called him immediately. … Fortunately, none of the people I know was there that day.”
Another woman, who only gave her last name as Guan, said she had passed the site around 8 p.m. Monday but had thought it was just a traffic accident.
“Of course this was very shocking,” she said. “It was very horrible.”
Chinese leader Xi Jinping called for strict punishment according to law in a statement on Tuesday. He also urged all local governments “to strengthen prevention and … prevent extreme cases from occurring, and to resolve conflicts and disputes in a timely manner,” according to the official Xinhua news agency.
—From AP reports
