Gregorius Nekschot - Prosecution

Prosecution

The public prosecutor in the case has been named as Paul Velleman. In an article in de Volkskrant Henny Sackers, from the law school of Radboud University in Nijmegen, is quoted to suggest that the prosecutor may use Nekschot as a case-study to explore the limits of the laws on free speech. In parliament, the evening before, the justice minister Hirsch Ballin had denied a similar suggestion by MP De Wit for the SP. Hirsch Ballin specified his own involvement with the arrest of Nekschot as follows. The prosecutor's office had intensily and meticulously been busy with the cartoons and had at several occasions been in contact with the minister. The prosecutor himself had done a very careful assessment, in which the LECD was of the utmost importance, but had by himself concluded for which cartoons he was to prosecute. In December 2006 the prosecutor had informed tne minister about his intention to press charges against Gregorius Nekschot. In this communication the prosecutor specified which cartoons he deemed liable to prosecution and which cartoons not. There followed, said the minister, more conversations, deliberations and further particulars. In the meantime an 'interdepartemental study group cartoonproblems' had been established to anticipate situations as in Denmark. Never had the minister given the prosecutor an order to stop or continue prosecution. He had only reviewed the consistency of the prosecution: for which cartoons to prosecute and for which ones not. There followed, once more, deliberations. Those contacts were continued, also within the study group. All this time the identity of Gregorius Nekschot was not investigated. Until the beginning of 2008 it was thought he was in fact two people.

All charges against Nekschot in the case were eventually dropped in September of 2010. The only caveat is that he is still not allowed to show the cartoons on his own website anymore due to Dutch penal code's article 137c, which forbids incitement to hatred. The images can still be reprinted when it is for journalistic reasons.