For the past 27 days, a small Protestant church in The Hague has been conducting round-the-clock religious services to protect an Armenian refugee family from deportation.
By law, police officers in The Netherlands are not allowed to enter places of worship during religious services. So, reverends from around the country have taken turns holding services at Bethel Church to prevent officials from arresting the Tamrazyan family, who have been in The Netherlands for nine years.
“By giving hospitality to this family, we could give them time and place to [demonstrate] to the secretary of state the … urgency of their situation,” Theo Hettema, chairman of the General Council of Protestant Ministers says.
#it only counts as a service if people actually attend#so at least one person has to be there 24/7#my mum’s been getting up at 5:30 for weeks now so that she could attend a service before work#:’)#and there are a couple of volunteers who are there at night when fewer people are likely to show up#it’s a community effort and the government has no choice but to address this#there’s increasing pressure from the oppsition and some parties within the coalition as well9,035 notes
(via @jammeke )
posted 11/21/2018
The last report was 26 nov 2018, at which time the service was still going on and there hasn’t been news since, so it seems that right now (nov 28th, it’s 34th day), the service is still going on.
A Dutch church has been conducting religious services for 27 days to protect a refugee family
QueerAnarchism 