AMSTERDAM (AP) — Hundreds of thousands of people lined Amsterdam’s canals on Saturday to watch the city’s canal boat parade, the highlight of an annual Pride festival that this year comes just a week after a deadly attack on a Pride event in Berlin.
Openly gay Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten, dressed in a white shirt, black life vest and gold necklace, waved to crowds as he sailed in a small boat through the colorfully decorated parade of 80 vessels, waving to participants and spectators as techno music pumped from speakers along the route.
The colorful floating parade came a week after the Berlin attack left one person dead and 29 injured. A suspect, Abdul Ballout, was suspected of driving a van into a crowd near the festival Saturday night before apparently stabbing others with a machete in what authorities believe was an Islamic extremist attack.
Ballout was shot and killed by police during a confrontation on Sunday in a suburb of the city, authorities said. Prosecutors said he had previously sought to join the militant Islamic State group.
Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema said in the aftermath of the German attack that authorities in the city would “where necessary take extra measures that visitors will hopefully notice as little as possible.”
Motorboats carrying police officers cruised the canals and a helicopter hovered overhead as Saturday’s parade got underway.
The boat parade is the traditional highlight of Amsterdam’s Pride. This year it coincides with a World Pride celebration that also is being hosted by the Dutch capital.
Rod Lugtenburg, 55, from Toronto, said he came to Amsterdam for World Pride. He stood on the city’s famous Skinny Bridge wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with a rainbow maple leaf as the boats passed.
“For me, it’s about acceptance, being able to be who you are,” he said.
“I have Dutch heritage and I have always loved the fact that the Dutch have been leading the way” in acceptance and rights for the LGBTQ+ community. “And Canada is right behind them, so I’m very proud.”
The joyful event happened against a backdrop of rising reports of verbal and physical assaults on members of the LGBTQ+ community in the Netherlands, that has long been considered a haven of tolerance. On Friday, a court in Amsterdam convicted a man of using discriminatory language at a Pride event in the city earlier in the week. He was ordered to do 40 hours of community service.
Boats taking part in the parade included vessels representing the Dutch government ministries, the military and police as well as LGBTQ+ organizations and clubs.
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The Netherlands LGBTQ+ rights group COC, which is celebrating its 80th anniversary this year, had a boat in the parade carrying a manifesto calling for progress in the fight for human rights for LGBTQ+ people in the Netherlands. It also carried a portrait of activist Marsha P. Johnson, who took part in the Stonewall rebellion when patrons at the New York inn of that name resisted a police raid on June 28, 1969. The raid helped usher in a new, militant phase of the movement for gay rights.
