Groom-To-Be’s Brutal Killing Silences Dutch Nation Protests ‘Senseless Violence’ With Two Minutes Of Quiet

Meindert Tjoelker’s friends were planning to celebrate his wedding Friday. Instead, they gathered at his funeral.

Tjoelker, 30, was beaten to death last weekend by four men after he criticized them for throwing bicycles into a canal in the northern city of Leeuwarden.

The brutality of his killing has galvanized this generally peaceful nation, where random violent crime is rare and murder rates are traditionally among Europe’s lowest.

At precisely 11 p.m. Friday, bars and public squares fell silent for two minutes to remember Tjoelker and protest his slaying.

Most Dutch television stations broadcast the moment live, showing people brooding over large mounds of flowers that have piled up in several cities as mourners laid bouquets through the week. One TV station that was showing the film “Dances With Wolves” broke away as a written tribute filled the screen.

Four men have been charged in the killing, but their arrests did not staunch an outpouring of anger and grief over the death.

Flags on municipal buildings all over the Netherlands hung at half-staff, and at 4:10 p.m. - the time Tjoelker was due to get married - civil wedding officials in Leeuwarden took to the streets in their ceremonial robes to commemorate “a bridegroom who will never arrive.”

Leeuwarden school children linked hands to form a six-mile human chain in a silent tribute during Tjoelker’s funeral.

“People are protesting to stop the senseless violence. They don’t feel so safe on the streets any more … we have to do something,” said Leeuwarden spokesman Sake Jan Terpstra.

Support for the nationwide protest gathered strength after the death this week of a man in the eastern city of Tilburg from a stab wound sustained in a bar fight.

The deaths hit particularly hard in Crossbow Alley in downtown Amsterdam. Just over a year ago, 26-year-old student Joes Kloppenburg was kicked to death in the alley as he tried to break up a brawl.

A neon sculpture spelling the word “Help” blinks on and off above the alley above a simple plaque marking the place where Kloppenburg died. A similar memorial now seems likely in Leeuwarden.

“Leeuwarden is very peaceful,” Terpstra said. “These things aren’t supposed to happen here.”