Police clashed with anti-lockdown and anti-government protesters on Amsterdam’s Museumplein square on Sunday as around 2,000 people rallied against coronavirus restrictions in the country.

The protest, which had been denied permission by city authorities who had specified that the event could only take place in the nearby Westerpark with a limit of 500 people, was broken up with water cannons and mounted police, after demonstrators refused to leave the area and threw projectiles at the police.

The demonstration, which took place two days after the Dutch government collapsed over a child benefits scandal, came after the Dutch authorities extended lockdown restrictions by a further three weeks on Monday, with the government also announcing that it was considering implementing a curfew.

According to Amsterdam’s police force around 100 people were arrested in the course of the demonstration.

Dutch coronavirus restrictions include the closure of schools and childcare centres, as well as cafes and restaurants, with residents urged to stay at home and only leave for essential reasons such as purchasing food, medical visits or exercise, or to work.

In a statement released on Monday the government justified the measures saying that the “next task is to bring about far larger and quicker reductions in daily infection rates, so that the number of COVID-19 patients in hospitals and intensive care units also comes down.”

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