In recent years, the police and defense police have experienced problems with so -called ‘sovereign’ employees, who place themselves above the law and distrust the government. The police and Defense confirm this on Wednesday morning after reporting by RTL News. In the case of the police, this is five employees, the Ministry of Defense does not want to mention numbers because of safety.
They do not want to lose exactly what problems the services experienced with the sovereign employees. The police do say to RTL News: “These five employees have expressed the sovereign ideas, otherwise they would not have come into the picture.” According to the service, acting towards the sovereign ideas is incompatible with the office.
The police force leadership identified the sovereign ideas of the five employees in 2023 and 2024. In two of the five cases, the police could not determine a breach of duty, although a warning interview was conducted in one of those cases. An investigation is ongoing for three agents.
Sovereign
Sovereigns are people who turn away from the government and other institutions. In addition, they spread untrue stories about policymakers who would have evil intentions. Some of them want to decide for themselves which laws and rules they adhere. According to Intelligence Services NCTV, AIVD and the police, the behavior of sovereigns can undermine the legal order in the long term. Last April the AIVD announced that tens of thousands of Dutch people see themselves as sovereign.
The majority of the sovereigns do not explicitly reject the government system, but tries to move around the state as much as possible. A second group of thousands of people does reject the system. The most radical group consists of dozens of people who are preparing for an “inevitable” fight against the government. Members of this group could proceed with violence in the short term, according to intelligence services. Currently there are also criminal cases against sovereigns that owned, among other things, weapons.
RTL Nieuws received access to internal police documents and emails through the Open Government Act. The medium encountered warnings from the corps line to employees that sovereign ideas does not fit into the organization. Managers can also read in a document how to deal with employees who declare themselves sovereign.