Assistant Professor Harry Pettit was among those arrested after the attempted occupation of Theatre Hall C on Monday. He says he can prove that he had nothing to do with it. The University will ‘evaluate’ the case and is calling on people to share relevant information about the occupation attempt with the police.

‘At the time when Theatre Hall C was vandalised, I was still on the train from Amsterdam to Nijmegen,’ Harry Pettit tells Vox Wednesday afternoon. He still cannot get over the fact that a few hours later he was arrested, on suspicion of precisely those acts of vandalism. He certainly does not understand why he was subsequently detained at the station for 30 hours. He sighs deeply. ‘I’m in shock.’

Social geographer Pettit was one of six people arrested by police in a Nijmegen city bus last Monday afternoon. The six were suspected of involvement in open destruction of property. In Theatre Hall C, pro-Palestinian activists attempted an occupation.

‘I was not involved in that,’ says Pettit. ‘Nor do I know who was behind it.’

Here is Pettit’s version of Monday afternoon’s events: ‘When I arrived on campus, I immediately saw a police car. I walked to the lawn where we were to hold a pro-Palestinian demonstration. There I found out that it had been cancelled.’ The protesters had communicated on social media that they did not feel safe with the police presence on campus.

The group of six, including Pettit, then decided, wearing keffiyehs around their shoulders, to board a city bus in front of the Elinor Ostrom building. That took them as far as Central Station, where the driver was ordered by the police to stop the bus.

‘Our fingerprints were taken and we were detained in separate cells’

According to Pettit, something remarkable then happened. A building manager and a university security guard entered the bus and reported Pettit and the others in the group to the police, after which they were arrested. Other sources confirm this report.

‘Our fingerprints were taken and we were detained in separate cells,’ says Pettit. Then the long wait began: it was only the next day that the assistant professor was questioned, in the presence of his lawyer, and was able to show on his phone that he was not on campus at all when the incidents in Theatre Hall C took place. He was released in the early evening.

Petition

University employees have launched a petition calling on the Executive Board to account for Monday’s events. The more than 600 signatories from within and outside the University want the Board to conduct an in-depth investigation and to hold accountable the staff who engaged in ‘false profiling’.

The petitioners are also demanding a public apology and compensation, and calling for a plan to prevent students and staff from being detained again for no good reason.

‘It is also still unclear to us what exactly happened’

The university spokesperson says there will indeed be ‘a review’ of the events around the failed occupation. ‘Radboud University is pressing charges for destruction of property. That is common in cases of vandalism. It is also still unclear to us what exactly happened.’

‘Our concern goes out to all who were involved in this situation,’ he continues. He also explicitly mentions security guards and administrators, ‘who work hard every day for all of us’.

‘It is important for everyone to share any relevant information they may have with the police. The police are also asking for this. Investigation and prosecution are tasks for the police and the public prosecutor’s office. It would be unwise to draw premature and interim conclusions now.’

Eroded trust

In any case, the whole thing has further eroded Pettit’s trust in the University. ‘They could have withdrawn the charges at any time after the arrests, but they did not.’

According to Pettit, it is indicative of how the University has been handling protests lately. ‘Students are chased after by security guards and as soon as anything resembling a demonstration takes place, they call the police. This undermines the whole idea that protest is also allowed to be disruptive.’

The police communicated on Wednesday that Pettit and the five other arrestees are still suspected of open assault on property. The investigation is ongoing.