Student protest prevents Frontex recruiting event at University of Amsterdam
Wanneer: 05/12/2025 - 12:30
On Wednesday, December 3rd a group of fifty concerned students and allies on behalf of Abolish Frontex NL disrupted a networking event organized by Sefa (the UvA study association for Economics and Business Students) during their ‘career week’ on behalf of Frontex, the European border and coast guard agency.
The Career Week is the largest on-campus career event at the UvA and Frontex was one of the three main partners advertized. This event followed a ‘speed-dating’ event held earlier in the day. Both events held the goal of connecting Sefa affiliated students with potential job opportunities at Frontex.
The disruption achieved its aims: to stop the networking event from taking place, ensure that Frontex did not return to campus on Thursday, December 4th for a scheduled appearance at a career fair, and inform the university community of Frontex’s policies and execution of murderous border violences. To do so, students and allies held two parallel events: a disruption at the networking event, and a informational event in the main hall of the building.
Frontex is responsible for international crimes against humanity. Specifically, enacting mass violence on and displacing people on the move: drowning people in the Mediterranean, shooting people at borders, crafting death making conditions for people in detention centers, torturing and killing people even after they have been deported. Their actions, along with the broader border militarization policy of Fortress Europe, have killed over sixty-six thousand people since 1993.
While the initial goal had been to disrupt the public event from within, students and allies were forcefully denied entrance by members of the student association. Instead, the group rallied outside, repeating: “NO CAREER IN BORDER DEATHS/ OPEN BORDERS, STOP FRONTEX!” Student representatives of Sefa called both university security and police, who formed a barrier between the protestors and the event hall. Though Abolish Frontex NL disrupted only with noise, security staff tackled one protesting student and police arrived with batons held offensively and a visably frightened, aggressive dog.
Though the official university statement released on December 4th states the opposite, eventually, police and security escorted out three Frontex representatives and about ten Sefa affiliated students through a back entrance of the building. Sefa representatives confirmed that the event was over and that Frontex would not be returning for the career week. This was publically confirmed via a post on Sefa social media. The demonstration then joined the informational event in the main hall of the building, and more members of the university community joined: “No borders! No nations! Stop deportations!” Student demonstrators never left the building against their will and instead continued the demonstration and community education.
Amira, a student protestor with Abolish Frontex NL, states: “We want our campus to be a place where we learn to contribute to positive change and take responsibility for and with our community. This means we are necessarily against giving a stage to a racist military agency. Today, we showed our resistance through creative and informative protest. We invite all committed to building a shared world to join us in organising for a demilitarised campus and in solidarity with our classmates who had to cross Europe’s borders.”