2011 in the Netherlands

On 2 July 2011, Ihsan Gürz (born c.) died in a police cell in Beverwijk, the Netherlands, after being arrested by the police. He was found with no heartbeat, resuscitated and then taken to hospital, where he died. The official death cause and verdict of two judges is heart failure in combination with cocaine abuse; his family claims he was killed by police brutality. No police officers were convicted of wrongdoing and this judgement was upheld on appeal. His father Cengiz Gürz was later convicted of swearing at one of those officers. The case was at first little reported in the Netherlands, but became controversial in Turkey, where the government became involved.

Netherlands selected their Junior Eurovision entry for 2011 through Junior Songfestival, a national selection consisting of 8 songs. The winner was Rachel with the song "Teenager".

Michael Arjan Koomen (20 July 1979 – 14 May 2011) was a Dutch amateur footballer who was shot and killed by a police officer while trying to calm down a struggle between his team mates and the officer in Amsterdam. The Dutch public prosecutor announced the officer would not be charged over the shooting, a decision upheld on appeal, so the Koomen family lawyers announced they would go to the European Court of Justice.

General elections were held in Bonaire on 2 March 2011.

The IX International Franz Liszt Piano Competition took place in Utrecht from March 25 to April 8, 2011. The competition was won by Masataka Goto. Olga Kozlova and Oleksandr Poliykov were awarded the 2nd and 3rd prizes.

A novel strain of Escherichia coli O104:H4 bacteria caused a serious outbreak of foodborne illness focused in northern Germany in May through June 2011. The illness was characterized by bloody diarrhea, with a high frequency of serious complications, including hemolytic–uremic syndrome (HUS), a condition that requires urgent treatment. The outbreak was originally thought to have been caused by an enterohemorrhagic (EHEC) strain of E. coli, but it was later shown to have been caused by an enteroaggregative E. coli (EAEC) strain that had acquired the genes to produce Shiga toxins, present in organic fenugreek sprouts.

The Netherlands was represented at the Eurovision Song Contest 2011 with the song "Never Alone" written by Jan Dulles, Jaap Kwakman and Jaap de Witte. The song was performed by the band 3JS, which was internally selected by the Dutch broadcaster Televisie Radio Omroep Stichting (TROS) to represent the Netherlands at the 2011 contest in Düsseldorf, Germany. 3JS' appointment as the Dutch representative was announced on 15 July 2010, while the national final Nationaal Songfestival 2011 was organised in order to select the song. Five songs competed in the national final on 30 January 2011 where "Je vecht nooit alleen" was selected as the winning song following the combination of votes from a five-member jury panel and a public vote. The song was later translated from Dutch to English for the Eurovision Song Contest and was titled "Never Alone".