He was released after 30 hours, but it was expected that he would be prosecuted for discriminatory speech, insulting certain groups in society on the basis of their race or beliefs and possibly also for the crime of inciting hatred.
With "Gregorius" he refers to Pope Gregory IX, who instituted the Papal Inquisition, and "Nekschot" means literally "shot in the neck," a method used, according to the cartoonist, by "fascists and communists to get rid of their opponents.
"[3] Gregorius Nekschot was an associate of filmmaker Theo van Gogh who was murdered in 2004 by a young, homegrown, Muslim fundamentalist by the name of Mohammed Bouyeri.
This debate became alive again with the Danish cartoon affair and the making of the controversial film Fitna in 2008 by Dutch MP Geert Wilders of the Party for Freedom (PVV).
Justice minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin of the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) party wished to revitalize a law on blasphemy and expand it with protecting non-religious philosophies of life.
The last time that such an offense, in an artistic expression, was prosecuted, was in 1969, when the majesty of Queen Juliana was insulted by cartoonist Willem Holtrop, who presented her as a red-light district prostitute, and was fined 200 guilders.
She cites a case of a mosque in Amsterdam selling ancient books with paragraphs about homosexuals and of an imam in The Hague giving instructions for light corporal punishment of women, both of which were not prosecuted.
[9] A review of his Misselijke grappen in de Volkskrant newspaper of March 31, 2006 considered his (quoting the artist himself) 'needlessly offensive' work was not mirrored by any form of idealism.
Nekschot says that he remained silent during interrogation, but nerves and laughter once broke his silence when police were reading him in official jargon a description of one of his cartoons.
[8] Justice minister Hirsch Ballin informed Parliament on May 20, 2008, that the purpose of the police visit was the search itself and that it was only a coïncidence that the cartoonist had been present and was arrested.
[20] INACH believes the Netherlands, 'once a liberal democracy where the rights of all were protected', should balance the fight against terrorism by enforcing and expanding anti-discrimination laws.
INACH says that some members of parliament have the wrong priorities if they are worried more by infringement of free speech than protecting its citizens against a cartoonist 'who hates blacks and Muslims.'
After his arrest, many mainstream media supported Gregorius Nekschot by publishing his cartoons, as for example on the front page of Amsterdams Het Parool newspaper.
[22] Only the small, but influential with the government's Christian parties, Trouw newspaper has been somewhat supportive of the prosecution itself, stating in its chief editorial that only a judge can decide whether the cartoons constitute a crime.
In an editorial, the newspaper most closely associated with the government PvdA party, de Volkskrant, immediately condemned the decision to police satire or other 'cultural candy'.
The nation's largest newspaper De Telegraaf on its front page on May 22, 2008, focused its readers attention on a colourful painting of two rather abstract female nudes by artist Ellen Vroegh that the municipality of Huizen removed from public space at city hall at the request of a Muslim gentlemen.
Syp Wynia in Elsevier magazine argued that events pointed to a sudden and conspicuous change of policy within the prosecutor's office, and by its highest authority: the justice minister.
Denying exaggerated talk on internet of a clash of civilizations and wanting to be evenhanded, the editors reminded readers of recent arrests of protestors against Wilders and concluded that the government is nervous about all trespassing.
Cartoonist Ruben L. Oppenheimer in NRC Handelsblad (May 24–25, 2008, pg 14) presented a fictional, signed and stamped, document of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, headed (in translation): PLEDGE OF LOYALTY, SUPREME NATIONAL AUTHORITY FOR WISDOM OF THE PRESS AND HUMOUR EXPERIENCE, SUB-DEPARTMENT CARTOON ARTS.
On the same page, in a satirical column the paper's editor Marc Chavannes pretended to have received a document from the governments legal counsel, addressed to the PM, advising him to declare a state of limited emergency in order to win his lawsuit against Opinio magazine, which had published a secret speech under his name to his political advisors (obviously a pastiche), admitting that not extremist Islam was the problem, but Islam itself.
Another and important contribution was made by Frenchman Sylvain Ephimenco, a regular columnist in Trouw, in the weekend special De Affaire (May 24, 2008), believing that the intimidating action against Gregorius Nekschot bears an uncomfortable resemblance to a posthumous reckoning with Theo van Gogh.
He documented the way in which Christian politicians within a few weeks after the murder of Van Gogh changed the issue from the filmmakers very real slit throat to the virtual wounds of the religious soul.
Following the weekend Trouw on Monday May 26, 2008 offered a third of a page to Thomas Mertens, a professor at both the Nijmegen and Leiden universities in 'theory and philosophy of the law' and 'human rights and obligations.'
Mertens, reacting to both the Nekschot and Jonas Staal affairs, shared with his readers his surprise at so many defending some absolute right to speak freely.
NRC Handelsblad the same day, in a twist, had one of its illustrators comment in words instead of pictures, actually writing that life for Dutch cartoonists was made too easy in a world with absolute freedom of speech.
He objects to the 'blaming ourselves' habit of the Dutch, even quoting the queen's Christmas message after the Van Gogh murder in which she said on equal terms that 'extremism in both word and deed' was dividing the country.
De Volkskrant, the same morning, mentioned near disbelief within the left wing GroenLinks party that the prosecutor's office had needed three years to establish the identity of Nekschot.
MP De Wit from the socialist SP party suggested that the justice minister was seeking retribution for parliament's recent opposition to new legislation on profanity.
In a cartoon a naked prime minister is being depicted as 'in touch' with the darker side of public opinion through his 'mighty organ', being the government chief terrorism official as a tapeworm awaiting orders.
In another cartoon, once more the prime minister is drawn as praying five times a week in front of a circumcised penis or lingam while wearing a fake beard and a djellaba.