Just as dance teacher Willem Engel had started his next crusade – this time not against ‘Nazis’ who shape corona policy, but against the ‘Nazis’ who occupied Ukraine and are therefore rightly attacked by Putin in his eyes – he was arrested. and put in jail, where he must remain for at least another two weeks.
In the arrest, the Public Prosecution Service allowed itself to be not only due to formal legal arguments, but also to social unrest. More than twenty thousand Dutch people signed the declaration against Engel at the end of last year. ‘It indicates that it is alive in society. We will take that into account,” the press officer said on the occasion.
This approach carries a risk. Under the rule of law, the displeasure of the masses should never be the guiding principle in deciding whether or not someone should be prosecuted.
When Geert Wilders was prosecuted for group insult, it was logical that the massiveness of the report was taken into account. Those who filed a report were direct victims of Wilders’ incendiary language. In Engel’s case, this is less evident. The dance teacher mainly focuses on the people in power. Their declaration, like that of Sigrid Kaag, whose address he put online, is relevant. But the support of thousands of random Dutch people is not necessarily that.
Moreover, if the Public Prosecution Service takes the social unrest into account, it must also consider that a lawsuit against Willem Engel gives him the stage he so desperately longs for and gives him the opportunity to profile himself as a martyr of free speech. A lawsuit will add to the unrest.
People like Willem Engel poison the social debate, which is increasingly degenerating into intimidation and even physical violence. It is good that the Public Prosecution Service is thinking about how this can be curbed criminally. But it should exercise restraint in this regard, because every criminal boundary also limits freedom of expression.
Now the Public Prosecution Service immediately opts for the heaviest guns, by demanding an extension of the pre-trial detention. The examining magistrate may only impose this if there is a serious offense or if there is a serious and substantiated fear of repetition. For the time being, the Public Prosecution Service is not disclosing the precise evidence it has against Engel. In the case of such a serious intervention – the detention without conviction and the silencing of a suspect – society is entitled to a more extensive explanation.
The position of the newspaper is expressed in the Volkskrant Commentaar. It is created after a discussion between the commentators and the editor-in-chief.