Dutch Press Review Wednesday 6 June 2012

There’s outrage in the papers at what they’re calling the country’s worst ever miscarriage of justice. The Socialist Party’s Big Friendly Giant is wooing public and politicians alike in a bid to become PM, says de Volkskrant. Sixteen-year-olds can look forward to one last boozy summer, according to AD. A compromise deal on ritual slaughter aims to make it ‘animal friendly’, De Telegraaf reports. And Orville the Dutch helicopter cat is world famous, says Het Parool.
Wrongly jailed for ‘wok murder’
“Possibly the Netherlands’ biggest ever miscarriage of justice” is what today’s dailies are calling the case. It looks like six innocent people spent years in jail for the murder of a woman at a Chinese restaurant in 1993. Normally such notorious cases pick up a nickname that everyone sticks too, but the papers can’t agree on this one yet. It’s the “Breda case” in AD (after the city), the “Peacock case” in Trouw (after the name of the restaurant), the “Breda six” in De Telegraaf and – rather less tastefully – the “wok murder” in nrc.next.

The restaurant owner’s mother was found strangled and beaten to death in the kitchen, the restaurant plundered. Eventually three men and women were arrested, all in their late teens or twenties. The men maintained their innocence, the women confessed. But they told a string of contradictory stories – under police pressure, according to AD. And they were convicted on the basis of “evident nonsense”, according to De Telegraaf’s editorial, quoting a criminal psychologist. DNA evidence found at the scene clearly belonged to someone else, de Volkskrant reports.

Of course the papers take the opportunity to run through the country’s other recent notorious miscarriages of justice: the Putten murder, the Schiedam park murder and the cases of Lucia de Berk and Ina Post. At least with the Breda-six-Peacock-wok-murder the public prosecutor’s office itself has called for the case to be reviewed, says AD. But De Telegraaf wonders just how many other innocent people are behind bars: “Lawyers claim that more such scandals are coming to light. A horrifying thought.”

Big Friendly Giant for PM
“The Socialist Party is booking a ticket to the tower,” de Volkskrant leads. If this were London you might think the socialists were heading for a spell in the dungeons. But here they’re heading for power. The tower in question is the prime minister’s office.

SP leader Emile Roemer is unashamedly angling to land the job of PM after September’s election, buoyed by promising polls. The “Big Friendly Giant”, as AD calls him, is making sure the other parties know he’s happy to negotiate on any topic they care to mention in coalition talks, says de Volkskrant.

The socialists are doing their best to be cheery and positive in their election manifesto launched on Tuesday, the paper says. “The Netherlands is a beautiful country with wonderful possibilities,” runs the opening. “And lots of opportunities for a beautiful future.” And policies on topics like a higher minimum wage and a 65-year retirement age have all gone rather vague, leaving plenty of room for manoeuvre.
To boost the new cosy image, Mr Roemer had a card up his sleeve to “trump Prime Minister Rutte mercilessly”, as AD puts it. He turned up with D66 leader Alexander Pechtold at a debate run by the Netherlands’ most homely and middle-aged women’s magazine, Libelle, says NRC Handelsblad. AD’s columnist wonders what they actually debated: perhaps “summer recipes and remedies for corns and in-growing toenails”.

Booze ban for teens in sight
Young people and booze are back in the papers. True or false: “Two young people a day drink themselves into a coma.” Nrc.next poses the question in its regular 'next.checks' feature, and concludes that it’s true.
The topic makes the front page in AD. The Upper House of parliament says it’s time to put a stop to teen binge drinking. It’s passed a motion calling for the minimum drinking age to go up from 16 to 18. The idea has been knocking about for a while, and a majority in the Lower House is also in favour. At present you have to be 18 to drink spirits, but at 16 you can swig as much beer as you like. Now it looks like change is on the way.

“At last, at last,” paediatrician Nico van der Lely tells AD. He runs a special clinic for young people with alcohol problems. “Every drop of alcohol you drink before you’re 18 harms the growth of your brain,” he says. “It’s been medically proven for a long time.”

But caretaker Health Minister Edith Schippers reckons it’s a matter for her successor to deal with after the September elections. So the nation’s 16-year-olds will still be able to spend their summer holiday in a drunken stupor.

Animal-friendly ‘living sacrifice’?
“Live sacrificial animals can bleed for a count of forty,” says De Telegraaf. Pardon? “Jewish and Islamic organisations are relieved that they’ve reached a compromise on ritual slaughter.” Ah, so that’s the story. I think De Telegraaf’s getting a bit carried away with the ‘sacrifice’ there. Let’s turn to a more weighty newspaper for more.
Trouw, for example. The compromise deal is that ritually slaughtered animals will be allowed to bleed to death for 40 seconds, but if it takes any longer than that for them to die, a vet will have to finish them off. It seems like everyone’s happy about the compromise – apart from Animal Party leader Marianne Thieme. And presumably the animals themselves, if only they read the papers.

It was the Animal Party that proposed a total ban on ritual slaughter without stunning the animal first, and for a time it looked like they might get their way. But the bill caused a “fierce, polarised debate” and it became clear that the Upper House would block it on the grounds of upholding religious freedom.
But now at least ritual slaughter will take place in an “animal-friendly way”, as De Telegraaf puts it. Again, the animals might look at it differently.
Animal-friendly helicopter cat?
There’s more on concerns about animal welfare in de Volkskrant, but this time it’s in the art world. However, you already know all about this, going by Het Parool. The story of Orville the helicopter cat has hit headlines worldwide, the Amsterdam-based paper says.

Orville, named after one of the Wright brothers, is a stuffed cat fitted with propellers, enabling him to soar through the skies. He’s a work by artist Bart Jansen, displayed during the Amsterdam KunstRAI art fair. Orvillecopter has met with a storm of protest from the likes of the Animal Party. Not that the cat was killed to make the work – he was run over by a car.

In the papers, the work elicits a flurry of comparisons with other dead-animal art, like Damien Hirst’s rotting cow or Maurizio Cattelan’s headless horse.

Artist Bart Jansen is represented by a gallery in the little village of Stampersgat in Zeeland. “Owner Geoffrey van Vugt was not entirely prepared for the explosive potential of the combination of death/animal/art,” says de Volkskrant. The flying cat originally had a 12,500-euro price tag, but as the art fair got underway the gallery owner soon saw which way the wind was blowing. He hiked the price to 100,000.