You would not search behind Bodegraven, a cheese village of Welgelegen on the Oude Rijn, but there seems to have been a satanist cult. Notables who together raped, tortured and killed children, led by the later RIVM director Jaap van Dissel. No, there is no trace of proof of that. No missing children, nothing. The whole story comes from the head of the “Dorpsgek” Joost Knevel.
Yet this story led to a lot of fuss in 2019-2020: an attack with a fire bomb on a journalist, serious threats and security of Van Dissel, Prime Minister Rutte, the local general practitioner and others. Knevel and two other distributors of the story were convicted of incitement. In the four -part documentary series The conspiracy (NPO 2) Joost Engelberts elaborates on the issue.
Every time astonishing to see how nonsense stories find so much resonance. Essential here is the belief in the big cover: governments deny everything because they would be involved. Or as a Christian painter says in the documentary: “Satan is such a sneak that it all stays in the dark.” Especially impress the testimonies of the mayor and a RIVM leader about the great impact on the community and on the false accused. You see the restrained disgust and anger on their faces.
Yes, the story could thrive in the coronation time because the growing distrust and the anger towards the institutions then increased considerably. But Engelberts shows that stories about children’s sacrifices of blood drinking satanists are much older. The Romans accused the Christians, the Christians in turn accused the Jews. The modern roots are more interesting: in the 1980s, the Satanic Panic in the US led to unjustified convictions. This witch hunt was driven among Christians by the charismatic movement that, among other things, provides devil exit.
More important is the role of psychologists, Engelberts shows. Colorful testimonies from patients about Devil’s child abuse have an irresistible attraction for therapists. In addition, it helps that ‘recovered memories’ came into fashion: with the help of steering questions, patients can ‘remember’ all kinds of traumas that they initially ‘repressed’.
It becomes even more painful when Engelberts shows that renowned TV sections also continued to pump the conspiracy theories. Investigative journalists from the VPRO only love six episodes of Argos devoted to satanist abuse. Those broadcasts inspired the police for a long investigation. The conclusion: it all turned out to be nonsense.
Carlo Heuvelman
Also in the two -part documentary Mallorca: the night and the aftermath (NPO 1) Journalists and opinion makers are not getting rid of it. During a fight in the Spanish holiday resort in 2021, 27-year-old Carlo Heuvelman was kicked to death. The media circus immediately went completely loose. Trial by Media Including disinformation, doxing, premature conclusions.
The clean task of Jessica Villerius to put everything in a row and truthful. She pays attention to the relatives, but also to the perpetrators and their families. Impressive is especially the story of Heuvelman’s mother – crushed by the death of her son. “Gosh, how difficult this is,” she says at the start of the interview. It is remarkable that she initially felt sorry for the perpetrators in court, “Jochies … it happened to them too.”
Pity only changed later when the suspects remained silent about the death of her son. And that this one Omerta Payed: In the absence of evidence, no one has been convicted of the death of Heuvelman. However, the penalties involved were given to participate in the fight. But the mother would have preferred to know what exactly happened to her child.