Engel says he interprets the condition as ‘not posting any message on my personal social media accounts’. „So those are mine facebook accounts, twitter accounts, instagram, youtube, MEWE and even telegram.”
Twice
On Friday and Saturday, Engel appeared twice with Jeroen Pols in the online TV program café Weltschmerz. He does not see it as an online medium of his own. On Twitter and Facebook, Friday’s broadcast could be followed via the Viruswaarheid account on Facebook and Twitter.
Willem Engel also says that before the ‘interviews’ at cafe Weltschmerz on Friday he “appealed personally against the provisional detention and, of course, all the conditions attached to the subsidiary suspension.”
Engel’s lawyer, Michael Ruperti, is said to have contacted the Public Prosecution Service from Wednesday with questions to specify the ban. These are: What is meant by social media? What is meant by utterances? Does it concern Engel’s personal accounts? Which topics may not be discussed? What period is involved? Is it text only? Or also image? Or also video? Or audio?’
Sedition
The Public Prosecution Service announced on Saturday that it had seen the broadcasts. On Sunday, the Public Prosecution Service said it would not answer the question whether the Public Prosecution Service had answered Ruperti’s questions: “It is a process between a lawyer and the Public Prosecution Service. We don’t want to bring the process to the media.”
Last Wednesday, Willem Engel was released after two weeks in pre-trial detention. He was in the cell for sedition, as a result of which other people have committed criminal offenses, according to the Public Prosecution Service. More than 22,581 complaints were filed against Willem Engel, collected by Norbert Dikkeboom. The reports concern incitement, fraud, dissemination of disinformation and statements with a terrorist intent.
Dikkeboom thinks there is no other option than that Engel goes straight back to the cell. “This is really an insult to the court and the Public Prosecution Service,” says Dikkeboom, who already did not trust Engel’s promise not to express himself via social media.