The Public Prosecution Service has apologized to seven people who had wrongly received a warning letter stating that they were present at a demonstration. That writes the OM Thursday. It concerns the climate protest that took place at Schiphol on 5 November last year. The personal data collected about the seven due to the demonstration will be removed from the systems of the Public Prosecution Service and the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee.
During the demonstration at the airport, more than four hundred demonstrators were arrested, 175 of them received a warning letter afterwards in which the Public Prosecution Service writes not to prosecute them, although their behavior is punishable. It was difficult to identify them, the OM writes, because many people refused to reveal their identity and did not have any proof of identity with them. The identification therefore largely had to take place afterwards, with the help of police sources and social media. That turned out not to have gone well: eight people protested against the letter. They say they were not present at Schiphol that day and were shocked that they were just classified as demonstrators.
After further investigation, the Public Prosecution Service now concludes that the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee wrongly established in seven cases that people were present at the protest. The investigation into the eighth person is still ongoing. “The Public Prosecution Service regrets that things did not go well here and will do everything possible to prevent this in the future.” The Marechaussee will therefore review the identification process of that particular day.
Also read this article about the wrongful letter: They were not at the demonstration, but are in the database of the Public Prosecution Service