Peter R de Vries shooting: King condemns ‘attack
on free press’
CrimePoliticsSociety July 7, 2021
Television
crews at the scene of the shooting. Photo: S Boztas
King Willem-Alexander interrupted a state
visit to Germany to express his ‘deep shock’ at the shooting of journalist
Peter R. de Vries in Amsterdam on Tuesday evening. ‘We want to make plain our
dismay at the appalling attack on Peter R. de Vries,’ the king said in an
impromptu address to reporters in Berlin. ‘We are deeply upset and wish
everyone close to him much strength in these difficult times.’ Later the royal
family issued an official statement underlining the king’s and Queen Maxima’s
‘deep shock’ at the attack on De Vries, who was shot in the head just after he
left a television studio at around 7.45pm. ‘Journalists must be able to do
their important work freely and without being threatened,’ the statement said.
‘We feel a connection with everyone who stands up for the free press in our
legal system.’ There was no further news on Wednesday morning on the condition
of the 64-year-old journalist after he was taken to hospital immediately after
the attack. On Tuesday evening Amsterdam’s mayor Femke Halsema said De Vries
was ‘fighting for his life’. Flowers at the spot where De Vries was targeted:
Photo: S Boztas Three arrested Police arrested two people after stopping a car
on the A4 near Leidschendam later on Tuesday, one of whom may have been the
shooter. A third person was arrested in Amsterdam. Two of the suspects, a
35-year-old Polish man and a 21-year-old man from Rotterdam, appeared in court
on Wednesday morning. They are suspected of being directly involved in the
shooting. The third suspect has been released, NOS reported. The shockwaves
from the attack reverberated through Europe, with European Parliament president
David Sassoli describing it as an attack on the ‘backbone of democracy’. Lotte
Leicht of Human Rights Watch called the events ‘shocking’, while the New
York-based Committee to Protect Journalists called on Dutch authorities to investigate
if De Vries was ‘targeted for his work’ and ensure that the attacker and the
masterminds of the attack face justice. ‘Journalists in the EU must be able to
investigate crime and corruption without fearing for their safety,’ said Tom
Gibson, CPJ’s European Union representative said. The European Council’s human
rights commissioner, Dunja Mijatovic, said ‘everything should be done’ to
ensure the people who planned and carried out the shooting were brought to
justice. Journalists targeted The shooting of De Vries is the latest in a
series of attacks in Europe in recent years targeting journalists investigating
organised crime and corruption. In 2017 investigative reporter Daphne Caruana
Galizia was killed by a car bomb outside her home in Malta. The 53-year-old
published a popular blog detailing allegations of secret payments to senior
politicians by lobbyists and Azerbaijan’s ruling Aliyeh family. The following
year 27-year old Slovakian journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancee, Martina
Kusnirova, were murdered at their home in Bratislava. Kuciak worked as a
reporter for aktuality.sk covering topics such as corruption, VAT fraud in the
EU and attempts by the Italian crime organisation ‘Ndrangheta to infiltrate
Slovakian politics. Death threats De Vries had received death threats from some
of the most notorious criminals in the Netherlands, including Ridouan Taghi,
who is currently on trial alongside 16 other men accused of ordering six
assassinations in the so-called ‘Mocro mafia’ drugs war. De Vries had accepted
an invitation to represent key witness Nabil B., who agreed to co-operate with
authorities after he was involved in a mistaken identity murder in January
2017. B.’s lawyer, Dirk Wiersum, was gunned down on his doorstep in Amsterdam
in September 2019, while the witness’s brother was shot dead the previous year
by a hitman posing as a job applicant. Peter R. de Vries on TV show De Wereld
Draait Door De Vries had reportedly refused an offer of police protection after
the murder of Wiersum because he would be unable to maintain his contacts in
the underworld. He also worked on a number of cold cases and won an
International Emmy Award for his reporting on the disappearance of American
tourist Natalee Holloway on Aruba in 2006. Heineken kidnapping He made his name
in the 1980s reporting on the high-profile kidnapping of beer magnate Freddy
Heineken, but later fell out with the leader of the gang, Willem Holleeder,
when he was involved in a movie adaptation of the events. In 2017 Holleeder was
given a three-year jail sentence for making death threats to De Vries. Prime
minister Mark Rutte said in a televised statement on Tuesday that the attack on
De Vries was an ‘attack on a brave journalist’ and ‘on free journalism which is
so important for our society.’ The US embassy in The Hague described it as ‘an
attack on a Dutch national hero’ and ‘on freedom of the press itself’. Jan
Struijs, chair of the Dutch police union, told the NOS Radio 1 Journaal that
the shooting was an ‘attack on our justice system and democracy’ and called for
a concerted fightback against organised crime. Gert-Jan Segers, leader of the
ChristenUnie party that was a partner in the last coalition, said undermining
of the state apparatus by criminals should be a priority in the talks to form a
new government. ‘This is really about the justice system and freedom itself,’
he said. ‘You can see how powerful it is and how far-reaching the influence is.
I think it needs to be even higher on the agenda: more money and more
capacity.’ Far-right PVV party leader Geert Wilders, who a month ago described
journalists as ‘scum of the earth’, said on Twitter that the attack was
‘terrible’.
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