I Was Arrested and Jailed for 12 Days, then Acquitted of Sedition

Prisoner 12756339

The prison I was held at, the penitentiary facility in Alphen aan de Rijn, the largest in The Netherlands and Belgium.

On September 21st, around 3am, I was taken from my car by two police officers, and I was immediately detained at a local holding cell in Breda, The Netherlands, for the crimes of a) threatening a Dutch politician on Twitter in November 2022, and b) instigating a popular revolt against state authority in January 2024.

TL;DR Summary: For threatening a Dutch politician (Jesse Klaver of the Green Left party) in 2022, I was convicted to serve my pretrial detention of 12 days, then released the day after the court heard my case. Additionally, the judge acquitted me of instigating a popular revolt via a TikTok video I posted in Dutch in 2024, which could have sent me back to prison for up to 5 years. I was released on October 3rd. I am now a free man again.

Dealings with the Lawyer

I was assigned a picket lawyer (pro deo, free of charge) since I wasn’t willing to pay the going rate of 500 Euros per hour. When I met my lawyer the morning after my arrest around 9am, I didn’t quite know whether I should trust him, thinking he might be working with the authorities against me. In the end, though, my lawyer delivered a proper plea. He got me acquitted from serving years in prison for the crime of sedition.

Since the police wouldn’t tell my lawyer either what exactly I had been accused of, we both had trouble figuring out what I might have done. It became clear that I had verbally threatened some politician in The Hague in 2022, but neither of us could figure out whom or why, or even what had been said. My memory had long abandoned me.

The benefit of having a lawyer at all is that he/she can properly explain the proceedings. My lawyer explained to me how the interrogations work (they drill down on details in order to get to their “gotchas”). He also accurately predicted the sort of punishment I might get for the crimes listed (to serve my pretrial detention and then do 40-80 hours of community service).

Still, I was very worried I might be handed years in jail. That’s because the police officers who tracked me down had apparently been looking for me for two years!

My lawyer also helped do the research I couldn’t do from prison. I had no access to the outside world other than through the prison’s broken pay phones. With the help of my lawyer, we were able to determine that I had commented, on Twitter in 2022, on a news item relating to the Dutch farmers’ protests. The politician I threatened had previously said he wanted to exterminate millions of cows.

Mugshot Taken

The police officers who captured me allowed me to take my cellphone with me, as well as my wallet and my car keys. One of the police officers had come from The Hague to find me.

They, apparently, were looking for a car with my license plates, correctly assuming I was driving it. They didn’t know of my exact whereabouts and had been looking for me since 2022. Before my arrest, I had been living in Budapest, Hungary, for two years, and that’s why they couldn’t find me sooner. I had only just moved back to The Netherlands, but didn’t yet have an official address yet.

The officers explained I was a wanted suspect in a certain criminal case. I was booked in the middle of the night and my mugshot and fingerprints were taken. My rights were explained to me verbally. I asked the public prosecutor, who was there, what exactly I had been arrested for, but he couldn’t tell me either, other than give the vague description of “threats and/or sedition”.

Repeatedly, though, throughout the ordeal, I was not handed the official papers explaining my rights to me in writing. This is required in The Netherlands. Because of this, it took me a day to figure out I had the right to call my lawyer from the holding cell.

The Interrogations

I was interrogated a total of four times on three different days. I must say that these (junior) public prosecutors are the least pleasant people I’ve ever met. It’s their job to get you to admit to crimes.

In my case, I honestly couldn’t remember what it was about, so I was quite baffled when the interrogators—finally, near the end of the first interrogation—showed me a copy of a Tweet I had allegedly posted on November 3rd, 2022. It didn’t look like something I had written, and I couldn’t remember writing it.

It said, “@op1npo @jesseklaver Should we give such a Klaver guy a bullet to the head, too?” [translated from Dutch]

Immediately, I recognized that the statement was an @ reply to the two accounts listed. Meaning, there was supposed to be a bit more context. What had I replied to? The interrogators, however, insisted I had sent this Tweet directly, manually including @jesseklaver.

Now I know I was referencing the fact that Jesse Klaver of the Green Left party had wanted to exterminate millions of cows. In 2019, I had attended the first farmers’ protest in The Hague, for example, where Jesse Klaver came on stage to argue against dairy farming. Though I had deleted the tweet within seconds, the Dutch parliament’s internet monitoring system (that monitors all politicians’ social media channels) still informed the parliament’s security people.

In hindsight, the interrogators were mostly interested in figuring out whether I had a laptop and a cellphone, and where these might be found. For example, the interrogators asked me about my day. How are your days structured? Do you do work? What kind of work do you do? And at some point, you blurt out that you work remotely using a laptop—and that’s the information they use to request this laptop.

The interrogators will also try to get you to make self-incriminating statements. They asked me, for example, why I wanted to kill that Dutch politician? I was wise enough to bring up my right to remain silent when confronted with such questions.

The Holding Cells

Before I was transferred to prison, I was held in police holding cells. As I said, I spent one day in such a holding cell in Breda, and was then transferred to The Hague, where I spent an additional three days. Dutch police are allowed to keep suspects in these holding cells for up to 90 hours (3 days + 18 hours, counted from the first 9am).

The holding cells are really isolation cells. Their sole purpose is to cut you off from the outside world. They also cut you off from outside sensations. They are about 7 by 7 feet in size, with an open toilet and a stone seat and table chiseled into the wall. There is nothing you can break or damage, for even the bed is made of stone.

They allow you to keep your 1 pair of clothes (my pants, my sweater, t-shirt, and socks), but you’re not allowed to hold on to your shoes. You are provided with flip-flops, which they didn’t have in my size.

The purpose of the holding cells is to get you to talk. Since you aren’t allowed to talk to anyone other than your lawyer, you are confronted with a massive desensitization. A holding cell may calm some people down, but it also introduces a very strange irritation. Namely, there’s nothing to do and nothing to keep you busy. You are left alone with your thoughts.

The Jailers

I must say that my jailers—i.e., your caretakers, as though you were a zoo animal—were fine people who took good care of my requests. It is their job to keep you alive, after all. From the holding cells, you are entitled to three times one hour of airtime. This means you’ll be escorted to a walled enclosure surrounded by gray concrete walls and metal fencing, but at least you get to catch the Sun.

My jailers provided me pre-heated microwave dinners, some bread, and some reading materials. But no pencils or pens. I wasn’t able to do any writing. I didn’t call my lawyer until I understood I had the right to request such a phone call from the holding cell. My jailer then dialed the right number for me and handed me a cordless phone (and left me alone with it).

After my first night and day in Breda, I was transferred—handcuffed and in a regular-looking car—to the police prison cells in The Hague. After about an hours’ drive, I was held there for another three days for the sake of some investigation.

The Second Crime

A third and final interrogation by the public prosecutors took place in The Hague. During this interrogation, a second case was added to the first. They claimed I had also produced and uploaded a TikTok video in January 2024, in Dutch, allegedly spurring my Dutch listeners to violently revolt against state authority.

In that TikTok video, I had spoken about a hypothetical “if-then” situation, and then listed my wishlist of political action to be taken “in case” we seized power. I did not say we should seize that power using illegal means or by force.

Referencing a poll by pollster IPSOS, I mentioned that 20% of Dutch citizens had had thoughts about overthrowing the state authority. I then ran with this fact and produced a political wishlist. For example, I said we ought to arrest and jail the directors of transgender clinics. I also said we ought to hand farmers more production rights, and we should build more homes for native women.

In The Netherlands, however, it is illegal to sow sedition, i.e., to spur people to violently act against state authority, with a maximum sentence of up to 5 years in prison. This is the count that got me most worried.

Meeting with the Examining Magistrate

I had a fourth interrogation, with the Examining Magistrate in The Hague. At first, she reviewed everything already discussed during previous interrogations. She seemed to be trying to make sure that everything that had been said had been accurately recorded, and I was able to make amends to statements I had made.

I met with my lawyer barely 15 minutes before meeting the Magistrate. He had been handed the full police dossier. So, after four days, this was the first time we were able to assess what exactly I was being accused of. It gave us 15 minutes to prepare for the final interrogation.

To my misfortune, the Examining Magistrate soon changed her tone. She mentioned having read emails between my mom and me, and on the basis of these, she felt the need to convict my characters. It didn’t matter that things were, again, taken out of context.

Throughout the interrogations, I had often felt that my personality was on trial. The Examining Magistrate, who severely disliked my person, extended my detention up to 14 days, awaiting trial, and I was sent to the Penitentiary Facility in Alphen aan de Rijn, the largest prison in The Netherlands.

She also informed us of the trial date: October 2nd, 2024, just about 7 days ahead.

Please Take Off All of Your Clothes

I arrived to prison in a police van. This time, I wasn’t handcuffed. I had this nightmarish vision of getting a “visitation” as they call it in The Netherlands. I was ordered to strip naked, thinking the worst. The on-duty staff member explained I just needed to squat (to see if something might fall out of my ass, like drugs).

That was it. It was slightly himiliating but nothing like they show you in the Hollywood movies. There’s no ass-raping in Dutch prison. However, had I dropped packets of drugs from my rear end, that would have been a very different story. Since I was clean, I got dressed, and I was handed a bag of bare essentials (just sheets and blankets) and escorted to my cell.

The strangest thing about arriving to my cell is that absolutely nothing was explained to me. I had been walking around in the same clothes and the same underwear for four days by now. Since I was locked up in cell without a cellmate, I didn’t know who to ask questions.

It turns out there’s form for requesting clothes, either from family or from church donations. But the form takes 48 hours to be processed before family may bring you clothes. And even after they bring you clothes, it can take several days before your cloths have been examined and delivered to your cell.

In the end, I ended up wearing the same clothings I was arrested in for almost 10 days. I washed my underwear in the prison sell sink using bars of soap, letting it dry overnight. I finally received the clothes my family brought me just in time for the court date.

The Racial Dynamics of Dutch Prisons

Of the 60 men locked up in our wing (West 3B), there were 4 native White guys like me, about 4 West Africans, 1 East African, 3 or 4 East Europeans, 1 Latin American guy, and mostly the rest of them were all Muslims with roots in either Northern Africa or the Middle East. The Muslim crowd certainly made up about 80% of this prison population.

By my 5th day in this prison wing, my cellmate got a black to cook us dinner on the weekend, and a mystery Latino to do our laundry. Yes, even in prison, White guys are on top. And the reason is simple: the White guys have money outside. Family is allowed to wire about 100 Euros a week into your prison bank account. With that money, you can order extra food, cigarettes, electric razors or hair clippers, and so on.

And so, the White guys can trade their extra cash for extra services. The Muslims may be the majority in Dutch prisons, but most have no money on the outside, and no family willing to send money either. As my cellmate put it, “They’re just really dumb guys who boast a lot but have nothing to show for it.”

Living in a 15m2 Apartment 20 Hours a Day—with a Cellmate

I was prisoner 12756339, subcode 640, stored away in cell number 24, in the West 3B wing. There were about 30 such double-bunkbed cells on our wing, totaling 60 guys. I spent a few nights as the sole inhabitant of my cell until I was moved to cell 14 (across from mine) where I met my first cellmate.

I was lucky. The cellmate I ended up living with was a White Dutch guy. I was his 8th cellmate already. He had witnessed them all. Blacks, browns, the whole rainbow. Mr. P. explained all I needed to know about the prison system, including some welcome insider hacks.

It was very difficult to make use of the prison pay phones, since the Muslim majority would normally occupy them all. As a White guy, you had to be first to get to the phone in order to make your calls. Luckily, on weekends, the Muslim majority slept in, and us early-waky Whites had all the phones to ourselves. (Recreational hours are offered on the weekends, so you have a few hours to access the wing’s pay phones.)

Sharing a cell with someone else now introduced two points of frustration. The dining table was both too small for two people and too big for the room. When both of us were sitting at the table, one of us always had to get up and move the chair out of the way whenever the other had to walk past you to get to the kitchen or bathroom area.

The second point of frustration is that the small bathroom (a shitter, a sink and a shower) only had stall doors. Meaning, you could always hear your cellmate shit. We never talked about this but it really made me sick.

The Program

What’s life in prison like? What’s there to do other than to rot in your bunk bed? Well, the prison cells have a fridge, cupboards, a digital TV set with about 80 channels, and a microwave.

Basic cooking is all done in the microwave, and you are given one microwave dinner per person per day, in addition to bread and toppings. As I said, you can trade with other prisoners, and me and my cellmate consistently got fed extra microwave dinners (we ate hot twice a day).

Between the hours of 7:45am and 4:30pm, there’s a general program. It’s the same program every week but there’s variety from Monday through Sunday. There’s a daily hour of airtime.

In Alphen, the air yard is on top of the prison roof. About the size of a soccer field, the air yard is all concrete and steel. There were some more payphones outside but most of them were broken, and the working ones were constantly occupied by the Muslim majority.

You get to do 4 hours of labor Monday-Friday, if you accept, because you can’t be forced to do prison labor in The Netherlands. There’s no chain gangs either. The prison compound has an in-house labor facility where you can either fold cloths (if you’re stupid), or put together TV sets (if you’re smart).

The Dutch prison system pays you less than $1 an hour and the money is credited to your prison bank account. You can use this money to pay for the pay phones, or you can save up to order a host of useful things for your prison stay. A lot of the Muslim guys refused to do the labor, and that is an additional reason why they never had any cash to spend on things like extra food.

My prison used to have an education progam but it was abolished due to staff shortages. The prison furthermore offered us 1 weekly hour of fitness (in the prison gym), 1 weekly hour of field sport (soccer outside), 1 hour of library visits, and 1 hour of Church (or the Mosque for the Muslims).

Death by Boredom

Prison became excruciatingly boring to me by the 6th day. This prison was both populated by and designed for the low-IQ crowd. As a high-IQ person, the prison’s lack of mental stimulation was most disturbing to me (so I got myself some books from the library by Goethe).

The day before my trial, I finally spoke to a prison “case manager”. A hot blond women in my age category came to finally explain to me how this prison works. But all I could tell her was that I didn’t fit in with the weapons dealers and drug runners they locked me up with. None of them were the sort of people I could hang out with socially in private.

She recognized my concern but mentioned that prison transfers took minimum 3 months to apply for and were rarely honoured. That deathly image of rotting away in such a boring place made me feel incredibly motivated to get myself acquitted. I spent most my free hours writing and re-writing my potential answers to the judge’s questions.

Facing the Judge

The strange thing about prison, once again, is that nobody informs you of anything. Due to the aforementioned payphone problem, I hadn’t been able to call my lawyer for a few days. So, on the day of my trial, I was just hoping they hadn’t forgotten about me. My jailers didn’t know anything about anything either.

Around 1pm, my jailers finally came to fetch me and told me to go downstairs to catch the prison transport to the court. Once there, in The Hague, I was put back into a holding cell and I still wasn’t able to speak to my lawyer. By 3:30pm, I was escorted from the police catacombs into the courtroom.

As a suspect, you are the last person to enter the courtroom, so everyone can see you. I was ordered to seat myself in front of my lawywer. I turned around to briefly wave at my parents who were audience members. They were there to support me.

When the public prosecutor now announced his desired punishment for me—80 hours of community service and 3 weeks of conditional prison time—I felt a lot more at ease. I had expected 1-2 years in jail. But it was going to be far less than that.

Since I no longer feared a hefty prison sentence, I was able to speak freely and I decided to simply tell the jduge the truth. Namely, that I had no violent intentions. This is a crucial bit. For if the judge or the prosecutor had suspected I had had violent desires, I would have gotten years in prison.

The public prosecutor was effectively a student who had just graduated from law. My judge was a women in her early 50s. She was smart and very accurate, and basically the judge was the only person I would deem reasonable besides my lawyer.

Sentence and Release

Telling the truth got me acquitted from the count of sedition (maximum 5 years in jail), and I got 40 hours of community service for threatening a politician (after deducting my 12 days already served in prison).

Although I was supposed to be released that same evening, I wasn’t. I had to first go back to prison to pick up my personal belongings, but the guards just escorted me back to my cell. Again, there was no one there who could tell me what was going on. I decided to go to sleep in my cell, hoping someone would pick me up later.

It took until about noon before someone noticed I had been acquitted! My jailers let me out of the cell, but didn’t even escort me out the door. Surprisingly, I had to knock on a few doors myself, stating my name through the intercom, and was allowed to pass through.

After signing a few papers, I was sent back into the outside world. All they gave me was a single-use bus ticket. My dad just arrived to pick me up and I had dinner with my parents at their home.