Before EJC (some weeks or months beforehand)
- A proposition to organise an activity around the topic Israel / Palestine was made to EJC core team by Nurit. The activity was not organised. The reason we heared was that EJC core team didn’t had capacity for that (more important things to deal with). But also that EJC core team didn’t want it to happen right away in the beginning of the festival
- A blog post was created to inform or warn people that meassurements
During EJC
– Saturday
- Workshop announcement “Intellectual self-defence on the example of the Israël Palestine conflict” the workshop announcements have been removed several times in the following days.
– Monday evening during the first open stage show
- 2 performers from israel where announced by the host as being from Israël which created controverse and debate.
– Tuesday 14:00 Complains about workshop
- Sophia complains about this workshop with EJC organisation. EJC didn’t saw a problem with it so she felt obliged to call the police. Simon from the core team checked on the workshop after trying to convince Sophia that there is no substantial reason to involve the Police. After talking to the organisor of the workshop he let it continue withe the remark ” well,this seems completely civilised “. Police didn’t want to do anything about it. Sophia had the feeling that they were turning the topic away from the genocide and the silencing of it towards a topic around her.
- Sophia was asked to not wear her T-shirt that had reference to Palestine and intifada on it. If not she would be asked to leave the convention.
- the organizer of the workshop had one our long conversation with Simon from the core Team Bubba from the IJA and Eileen who has been responsible for safeguarding work on ejc.The aim was to prevent further workshops that had already been announced. An agreement was found on a very personal level.
- a safeguarding report on Sofia has been filled out out by Eileen
– Tuesday during second open stage : host made political statement
- Guillermo, the host of the second open stage, made some political statements on stage during his presentation.
First when he asked about the representation per country on the EJC he said that it meant something that it stayed silent in the tent when he asked if anyone from Africa was present
Later he also called the juggling community to stand up against discrimination, racisme and genocide. Guillermo confirmed later that nobody from organisation made a point about that.
-Wednesday 16:00 till 19:00
- During the numbers league the TV screen with all the scores showed for every listed person the flag of the country of origin despite the no flags rule.
-Thursday 19:00
there was a two-hour conversation between the organizer of the workshop and Jonas the president of the EJA and Eileen the person responsible for the ejc. Misunderstandings and inconsistencies were clarified. In addition, the organizer of the workshop made an official complaint against Sophia under the saveguarding procedures because of intimidation.
– Friday 12:00 First gathering of Jugglers For Palestine
- Jan and Lieke after hearing about this decided to organise a workshop to speak about it. About 40 people showed up. An action for friday and saturday around 19:00 between 2 the galas was planned. The action would contain a juggling performance ( 20 jugglers for about 10 minutes or more in 3 ball cascade to reach 18.500 throws with the idea that every throw represents 1 killed child), banner, slogans or statements with megaphone.
- The idea was to make a call to other jugglers to come back the day after with pots and pans to make noise between the 2 gala shows on saturday.
– Friday 18:00 Planned action at screen
- Security was present with 2 or 3 people at meeting point for gathering and following the group who gathered there for the action.
– Friday 18:30
- Action was cancelled because many people cancelled their participation
- An exchange was asked with EJC organisers and we agreed upon meeting sunday at 11:00
- Just after that Jan was asked to remove his stop genocide Tshirt, and pressured by saying that meeting of sunday at 11 would be difficult if tshirt was not removed
– Friday 20:20 Action on the stage of the gala show
- Jan decided to take the stage of second gala show a few minutes before the beginning of the show. His message was: “Don’t stop talking about palestine”. “On average 28 children get killed” “EJC is censoring people from expressing their opinion by waring a tshirt like his that said <<STOP GENOCIDE>> “FREE FREE PALESTINE” “STOP STOP GENOCIDE”. Some people shouted with him, others clapped, some booed, a piece of cardboard was threwn towards stage by an individual.
- At the meantime somebody of organisation came on stage and pulled the megaphone from Jan’s hand, and pulled his arms to try to make him leave the stage. He was able to walk back up to front of the stage at a certain moment to repeat a few times his slogan and then decided to end his action after a minute or 2 maximum.
– Friday 20:30 Aftermath of the gala show action
- Jan was taken backstage and asked to leave the convention with agreement that megaphone would be returned if he left the terrain which he agreed with at first
- Jan was also told he could take his time to pack his stuff and say goodbye to friends. There was no time specified that he had to take his stuff and say goodbye.
- Somewhere around this time someone of the core team confirmed to Jan that security would probably have intevened to prevent the planned collectif action from happening.
- Jan was escorted towards camping by some EJC core team members and security agents.
- On the way there and while packing his stuff he was explaining to friends what happend to him in order to say goodbye.
– Friday approximately around 21:30
- The police was called by EJC. Jan identity was taken and controlled by 2 police officers. He was told he had a specific amount of time left before he had to be ready to leave.
– Friday around 22:45
- When Jan was ready to leave, EJC core team member annonced they would keep the megaphone untill the end of the festival to prevent it from being used again (despite the earlier agreement they made with him to give it back when he would leave)
- Jan told them that that wasn’t the deal and especially that they didn’t had the legal right of doing that. Jan refused to leave the terrain without his megaphone.
- After a little stand off, Jan insisted to call the police again in order to get his megaphone back before leaving.
– Friday around 23:15
- New intervention from the police, this time 3 (different) officers.
- Police tried at first to convince Jan to leave without the megaphone.
- Later they made a phonecall to justice department to give it back which they did.
– Friday around 23:30
- Jan left the convention by the emergency exit of the camping where he was camping (by his demand) and was accompagnied by a security agent on bicycle untill he was really out of the terrain of papendal sport center
– Saturday 11:00
- The meeting between the “action group” and organisers happened.
- For the action group it was Lieke who was alone (Jan had decided not to particpate anymore to give it more chances) and we hadn’t find anybody else anymore to participate.
- From the orgnanisation side nobody from core team participated (althoug we had agreed with people from the orgnisation team to do this meeting, not with EJA). It was Jonas, the president of EJA that was there instead of people from core team.
- An open space for dialogue was proposed in the bartent on 15:00
- Jan was contacted by or contacted himself several people around EJC core team or EJA (like his country rep) to ask weither he could participate to that open space of dialogue and then leave the convention again
– Saturday 13:00
- About 60 jugglers met outside the infopoint to speak about the whole situation and to decide upon further action and position
- Jonas came to intervene in this meeting
- Jonas announced that Jan was not allowed to particpate in this last-minute organised event of open dialogue
- The jugglers gathered there proposed to disobey that decission collectively and escorted Jan in a mini demonstration Jan towards the badge control where 3 security agents where waiting for us
- One of the 3 security agents tried to use physical force to stop Jan from entering or to prevent others from helping Jan to enter, untill one of the security agents instructed his collaegues to not sacrifice their own well being
- When passing in front of fire space, Nurit who collaborates with EJA and EJC tried to makes us go in via the side entreance of bar. Some of us said we would like to enter via the side of the festival terrain because we would have more visibility there.
- Not confirmed rumour: There was an attempt of taking the banner away from us by Nurit
- J. decided at that moment to take the megaphone out again to make more noise and attract attention
- In front of the bar we were accused of racism by Nurit by shouting Free Palestine or Stop Genocide
- After a last call to people on the festival terrain to join the dialogue more than 100 people attended the beginning of the meeting
- The meeting happened without serious incidents although there was controversial moments and when the last speaker denied the genocide (or didn’t want to name it like that) a big group of people who hadn’t spoken through the microphone left the bar tent with some noise