This was announced on Thursday by the Executive Board on the university website.
The same policy will apply to Schouwburgstraat from January. However, access checks may still be carried out in the event of ‘high-risk visits, special events or irregularities in the area’. In time, access gates will be installed in the Wijnhaven building as well, the university writes on its website
Porters at the University Services Department will receive additional training and support in order to carry out their ‘revised supervisory duties’ effectively.
The university’s security policy has been subject to criticism for some time. Students and staff have organised various protests and petitions against the LU-Card checks and the undercover security guards stationed in the Wijnhaven building.
In an accompanying interview, Board member Timo Kos says that ‘we could have communicated better about the measures we take. In recent years, we haven’t always succeeded in explaining clearly to the wider academic community why measures are sometimes necessary, how we weigh them carefully and how we scale them up and down.’
THREAT LEVEL
In November, documents released under the Open Government Act (WOO) revealed that an Arabic-speaking man who had accidentally walked into the Wijnhaven building in October 2023 had been the reason for the building’s closure.
Timo Kos commented on this in the interview: ‘At that point, the situation was unclear, but it was consistent with a long-standing, significant threat level specific to our university.
‘Our buildings are located in The Hague’s city centre, in the heart of our domestic government, with embassies around the corner and ministries just steps away. The security risks here were, and still are, clearly different from those at other buildings.
‘The decision to close the building must be seen in that context. It was based on the information available at the time, including intelligence from the services. I can’t and won’t share the details, precisely because we need to protect our people.’