Letter to the Dutch Helsinki Committee of 11 February 2013

To Mr. I.M. de Jong and Mr. H. Hummel Chairman and Director of the Dutch Helsinki Committee

Laan van Meerdervoort 70

2517 AN The Hague

By e-mail: office@nhc.nl

 

Amsterdam, 11 February 2013

 

Ref: : Netherlands Helsinki Committee

Nomination Joris Demmink

Dear Sirs,

 

I write to you in the capacity of lawyer of four victims of serious human rights viola-tions in the Netherlands or Turkey, committed by a senior Dutch justice official.

 

On 4 October of this year, three Dutch citizens, including myself, informed your sister organization, the U.S. Helsinki Commission in Washington, of these violations and the apparent impossibility of acting against these in the Netherlands. Central in the indict-ment, the role of the former Secretary-General of Justice, Joris Demmink.  For a report of the hearing on that date please refer to the website of the U.S. Helsinki Commission.

 

The victims of Demmink and the others, whether or not they acted on his instructions, are two young Turkish men, who declare to have been sexually abused and raped by Demmink at respectively 11 and 14 years of age. On October 24, 2012 both young men submitted complaints under Article 12 of the Code of Criminal Procedure to the Court

in The Hague due to the refusal of the Public Ministry to effectively investigate this matter.  The relevant complaints can be downloaded via the website of the Bakker Schut Foundation.  Should you need to access documents that have been attached to the complaints as annexure, I am ready to assist you.

 

After submission of these complaints and the associated international publicity, the young men and the Turkish journalist Kazmali who had published their experiences were seriously threatened and physically assaulted. The NVJ recently protested against this. For further information regarding this I again refer you to the website of the Bak-ker Schut Foundation.

 

A third victim of Demmink is the Dutchman B. that testified about his experiences as male prostitute in an Amsterdam brothel to your sister organization in Washington on October 04, 2012. I refer you to the report on this briefing dated October 4 of this year on the website of the U.S. Helsinki Commission. The story of B. is also documented in the documentary ‘Dutch Injustice, When Child Traffickers Rule a Nation:

 

A fourth victim of Joris Demmink is the Kurdish activist and businessman Huseyin Baybasin, who on August 31, 2011 lodged an official complaint against Joris Demmink for unlawful interference with a criminal case setup falsely. This complaint can also be downloaded via the website of the Bakker Schut Foundation.  Since this complaint was also pushed aside without any investigation by the Ministry of Public Affairs, an Article 12 Sv procedure will also be initiated on behalf of Baybasin, at the same time with a tort action because of the damage that the unlawful interference of Demmink in the criminal case and detention situation of Baybasin has caused. In the procedure instituted by Bay-basin for the review of his judgment, the Advocate General is currently carrying out an investigation at the Supreme Court into the serious abuses and corruption that resulted in the (false) judgment of Baybasin. For the particular application for review of 18 April 2011, you can again peruse the website of the Bakker Schut Foundation.  If your committee is interested in one of the attachments produced with this request, I am willing to also provide you with insight in it.

 

My question to your Committee is what were your motives to appoint Mr. Demmink as a member of your committee on 24 October 2012, while these facts and many more were at that moment adequately and publically known about Joris Demmink.  With the appointment of this ex-government official accused by multiple victims of corruption, false imprisonment and the rape of minors, you in fact indicate that you do not care much about the ideals you claim to endorse. Surely, it cannot be that your motive in this

was purely and only because your Committee was sponsored by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Justice and as far as I know the department of the Dienst Justitiele Inrichtingen of this Ministry? In that case, your committee (still) carries the name Helsinki Comite and ‘non-governmental organization’ unjustly. For bearing this name, a minimum independency of the State is after all required as well as a minimum respect for the ideals – protection of human rights including those of children – which is claimed to be the case.

 

This letter shall be published on the website of the Bakker Schut Stichting, a foundation that also carries out its research without any subsidy from the outside.

 

In anticipation of your reply,

With best regards,

A.G. van der Plas