Utrecht: December 26, 2012: On Tuesday, January 8 at 13:45 the bench chamber of the court in Haarlem (Simon Vrieshof 1) will initiate the trial against Joke Kaviaar for “Incitement to criminal acts or violent misconduct against the state” (Article 131 paragraph 1 of the Dutch Criminal Code). The charge concerns citations taken from four articles about the Dutch migration policy. Strikingly, the earlier indictment of “terrorist intent” (Article 131 pagragraph 2) is not included in the summons. The Support Group 13 September calls to take a stand against this prosecution and considers that any person has both the right and every reason to criticize the migration policies.

On 13 September 2011, Joke Kaviaar, poet, artist, and an active member of several activist groups that oppose the Dutch migration policy, was arrested at home by the National Crime Squad and held in jail under all possible restrictions for three days. There she was charged with “incitement and spreading incitement with a terrorist intent”. Meanwhile a house search was also conducted. Three months later, on December 7, 2011, the Public Prosecutor’s National Office had her website taken offline. The website was put back online by sympathizers on December 8, 2011, a day later, and is still there “including the inciting texts” thus reads the police report in the case file.

After a long-term research (under the name “Gulkana”) by the Unit Counter Terrorism and Activism of the National Crime Squad, Joke Kaviaar must now appear in court. It is striking that the aggravating charge of incitement with “terrorist intent” is not included in the summons. This raise the suspicion,
according to the support group, that the aggravated charge at the time of arrest, permitting the house search, and used throughout the entire investigation has only been added as intimidation, and to make use of the extensive investigative powers of the terrorism legislation. From the excessive search and seizure could already be seen that the whole investigation was mainly a fishing expedition in an attempt to map the radical No Border movement in the Netherlands.

At the start of the investigation “Gulkana”, the National Crime Squad informed already that the “objectives” of the investigation, in addition to “halting the fact” (nl: doen ophouden feit) included “discourage suspect and grouping” (nl: ontmoedigen van verdachte en groepering) and “send out a signal to suspect, grouping and population” (nl: een signaal afgeven aan verdachte, groepering en bevolking). This also clearly shows, according to Support Group 13 September, that a political show and test trial will be held, intended to give Joke Kaviaar a hefty sentence and thus to silence her, deter fellow activists, curtail the freedom of expression for those opinions that attack the state, obtain jurisprudence that stretches the limits of the term “incitement” and defend the Dutch and European migration policy at all costs against growing resistance.

At the time of the arrest, a group of people declared their solidarity with Joke and established the Support Group 13 September. With the trial of Joke in sight, the support group will come with regular updates and also publish a number of articles dealing with the case from different angles. In addition the support group calls on people and groups to redistribute the texts of Joke Kaviaar, make mirrors of the entire website ‘www.jokekaviaar.nl’ and to write articles that denounce the immigration policy.

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The quotations for which Joke Kaviaar is summoned, the relevant articles and more background information, are available at www.13-september.nl
Website of Joke Kaviaar: www.jokekaviaar.nl