‘Students have been aware of the plain-clothes “observers” for a long time, says student Esma (last name known to editors). Over the past few months, she has collected several students’ experiences with security at the Wijnhaven building in The Hague. ‘More and more often, students are saying to each other: “Don't look over your shoulder, but there’s and undercover guard behind you.”
‘None of the students and staff I spoke to felt safer because of the security measures. One student told me that the additional security measures at Wijnhaven damaged her relationship with the university. She said: “Every time I come here, I have to show my LU-Card to that security guard who stares at me at nine in the morning as if I’m going to attack someone, when I just want to go to my tutorial.”’
SORE POINT
This dissatisfaction with the university’s security policy was also evident last week during the Faculty Council meeting of the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs. Students and staff reacted with outrage over the deployment of undercover security guards, as revealed by AD. The Faculty Board acknowledges that the deployment of plain-clothes security guards is ‘a sore point’ and would also like the Executive Board to be more transparent about the measures taken.
Student Council member Archie Archie requested clarification from the Faculty Board regarding the security’s actions. ‘According to AD, there are undercover security guards at the university pretending to be students. Is that true?’
Interim dean Koen Caminada responded very cautiously, choosing to read out the university’s official statement on the security matter in response to the questions.
‘The university does not employ undercover personnel,’ he read out. ‘However, it does employ plain-clothes security guards. Their role is to guarantee the safety of our students and staff. They do so by identifying suspicious situations at an early stage so that de-escalating action can be taken. The job title of these staff members is proactive security guard. They carry a security pass and have been deployed a few times. These security guards have permission to make a recording when they observe a violation of the house rules.’
After reading out the statement, Caminada added in his own words: ‘They do not wear company uniforms but are very recognisable to many staff members. Less so to students. That is indeed a sore point. The question is: how recognisable are these individuals to the community at large? Shouldn’t they be recognisable to everyone? We will discuss this with the Executive Board.’
Student Council member Sophia Ritscher wanted to know how the security guards decide ‘which conversations they monitor and who they photograph. What are the criteria? Do they focus on a specific group?’
‘Those are very good questions’, Caminada responded. ‘We want to raise these questions with the Board as well: when certain measures do or do not apply and what criteria that is based on.’
Staff Council member Densua Mumford felt that the security measures infringe on academic freedom. ‘Does the Faculty Board feel that these security measures are in keeping with academic freedom, freedom of expression and other values that Leiden stands for?’
Caminada did not have an immediate answer to this. ‘Could you e-mail me this question?’ he asked. ‘I want to think about this, because it’s a very important question that cannot be answered with a simple “yes” or “no”.’
ETHNIC PROFILING
The topic of security was also discussed during the University Council meeting back in July. Joost Augusteijn of staff party LAG was very concerned about the information he had received from students and staff. ‘There is much unrest about the situation in The Hague. I know there are plain-clothes security staff at Wijnhaven. There are bag checks and security guards take photos of students and staff. I’ve also heard that entrance gates will be installed.’
'Students of colour feel that they are being specifically targeted by checks, said Augusteijn. ‘There are students who are afraid to come to the university because they keep getting singled out. It’s a painful situation.’
‘If that’s true, it is indeed very painful’, Vice-chairman of the Executive Board Martijn Ridderbos responded. ‘If we receive any signals about that, we will take action.’
He did not want to go into further detail about Augusteijn’s list of concerns. ‘Some examples are true, others are not. I don’t want to comment on that any further, because that would only result in a back-and-forth argument, which is not the point here. Everything we do with regard to security has to be proportionate. We need to decide whether the threat is serious enough to warrant installing entrance gates, for example. And if we decide that we want to install them, we must realise that this will have a symbolic effect. We will not make that decision lightly.’
During the Faculty Council meeting, Caminada addressed the accusation of ethnic profiling. ‘I’ve seen tough men and women with tears in their eyes at the porter’s lodges because they were accused of ethnic profiling. I want to stay out of the debate on whether that is true or not, but such an accusation deeply hurts people. It’s extremely painful. They themselves certainly don’t believe these accusations are relevant.’
PHOTOS
Esma’s report of complaints confirms the fear among students: ‘When I asked someone if the measures made her feel safer on campus, she laughed: “No, of course not. I feel less safe by the day. I can’t wait for the day I graduate so I never have to come back.”’
Students also told Esma that they had been, without cause, photographed from up close by a plain-clothes individual. After showing an LU-Card, this undercover guard was allowed to continue his way into the building, even after the students and a lecturer had complained to other security guards recognisable by their uniforms. Mare was able to confirm this account with other sources.
In a statement on its website (‘What we are doing to ensure our students and staff can work and study safely’, 29 August), the university admits that ‘plain-clothes security guards’ are deployed, but it does not say that they also take photographs.
‘There have been a number of incidents recently’, reads the statement. ‘For example, we have observed on several occasions people who do not belong on our campus. Unauthorised persons and those with ill intentions are obviously not supposed to be on our campus.’
What happens to the photos? University spokesperson Caroline van Overbeeke explains that ‘if a staff member takes a photo of a suspected violation of a house rule, that photo is subject to the same privacy protection as security camera images. This means that images must be deleted within 28 days, unless they show an unresolved incident, in which case they may be kept longer.
‘We store the images in one location at the university, under the same conditions and security measures as secured camera footage.’
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This is not the first time that security at the Wijnhaven building in The Hague has come under fire. In November last year, university security guards chased students and staff members who were on their way home from a pro-Palestine demonstration through the streets and even into a clothes shop. An investigation by consultancy firm Berenschot into this controversial action has still not been completed.
Previously, the Wijnhaven building was closed for several days due to an ‘external threat’. Despite repeated questioning, the university never agreed to clarify the nature of this threat in concrete terms. Since then, there have been occasional access checks in several university buildings, and structural ones in the Wijnhaven building and the Kamerlingh Onnes building. Back in April, students and staff called for an end to these strict measures in a petition (which was signed over 800 times).
Whether the university is even allowed to deploy plain-clothes security guards is not immediately clear. According to the law, all staff members of private security organisations must wear a recognisable uniform approved by the minister. Deviations are allowed, but only if the nature of the work justifies and necessitates it and an exemption is granted by the police’s chief constable affairs department. Mare asked the university if such an exemption is in place. According to Van Overbeeke, it is: ‘Security guards who are allowed to work in plain clothes have a security pass different from that of security guards who do have to wear uniforms.’
In addition, covert security would possibly require permission from the university’s works council, specifically the staff section of the University Council.
Has such permission been granted? Despite repeated attempts, Van Overbeeke will neither confirm nor deny this. Instead, she says: ‘The University Council has been informed regularly about the intensification of security measures. We also involved staff and students in this process as much as possible through discussions and communication on the website. However, the latter remains a matter of concern, because for the sake of security, you can’t disclose everything. It goes without saying that we want to be as transparent as possible about this towards the staff, students and visitors we want to protect.’
Van Overbeeke adds that students and staff are allowed to know who the plain-clothes security guards are, because their job is to identify ‘external threats’.
The Haagse Stadspartij raised questions in the municipal council about the university’s security policy. Among other things, the party asked the Board of Mayor and Aldermen whether the municipality was aware of the security policy and whether there has been any contact with the police’s intelligence department.
Based on the stories she has collected, Esma has filed a freedom of informationrequest (WOO-request) with the university for transparency about its security policy.