5 Feet of Fury

Case dropped against Dutch cartoonist

The Free Press Society Reports:

Nekschot goes on to say that “five years of expensive investigations, an arrest, legal procedures and consultation at the highest level have resulted in nothing. I think the prosecutor wanted to drop the whole thing because the case against Geert Wilders is due to begin. It’s the same prosecutor, you know.”

There is one fly in the ointment: Nekschot’s website may no longer display the “discriminating” drawings he was being investigated for.

However, they are still on the internet and Dutch newspapers are allowed to reprint them for “journalistic reasons”, as stated by the prosecutor.

As Nekschot sees it, however, that is “a very, very small price to pay. I can carry on making caricatures, perhaps even more controversial ones, because I have been allowed to keep my anonymity.”

The issue of continued anonymity has been Nekschot’s biggest worry all along. A public trial would have forced him to show his face, and that would have been tantamount to a death sentence. He remembers all too well what happened to two other Dutchmen who dared to offend the tender sensibilities of the religion of peace, the politician Pym Fortuyn and the film-maker Theo van Gogh, who were murdered in 2002 and 2004.