Gregorius Nekschot - Arrest

Arrest

On May 13, 2008 Gregorius Nekschot was arrested at his home in Amsterdam. The cartoonist was taken into custody for interrogation, but released after 30 hours. According to the press release by the prosecutor's office, the arrest was made in the presence of a judge, a public prosecutor, two assistants to the prosecutor and six civilian clothed police officers. According to the same release, the home of the cartoonist was traced by establishing who paid the monthly fees for the website and a search of the premises was necessary to confirm the identity of the cartoonist. After his release, Nekschot arrived at the editorial board of HP/De Tijd magazine with a new mobile phone, his previous one apparently confiscated by the police. In an interview with newspaper de Volkskrant, he commented that it was the first time in 800 years of satire history in the Netherlands that an artist was put in jail. Expanding on his arrest Nekschot said that police took much material like DVDs from his home. They also confiscated sketchbooks with never published draughts for his cartoons. He suspects that they were hoping to find material which would tie him to right wing extremist views. Nekschot says that he remained silent during interrogation, but nerves and laughter once broke his silence when police were reading him in official jargon a description of one of his cartoons.'It felt like being in a Monty Python'. Justice minister Hirsch Ballin informed parliament on May 20, 2008 that the purpose of the police visit was the search itself and that it was only a coïncidence that the cartoonist had been present and was arrested. He also added that two uniformed police officers had stood guard in front of Nekschot's house.