The devastating impact of criminalization by the justice system

The VPRO documentary Mijn vader de terrorist will be broadcast on Dutch TV NPO2 on 3 August 2023. With fictionalized scenes, played by top actors Jeroen Spitzenberger (The Year of Fortuyn), Sigrid ten Napel (Penoza) and Mees Blijleven (Thirties), the radical family story of director Daniel Krikke comes to life.

Cowboy behavior justice

On September 28, 1994, a police force raids the house of journalist Hans Krikke. A few weeks later, Krikke and his fellow journalist Jan Müter are told that they are accused of political terrorism. What follows is a bizarre rollercoaster that turned their lives and those of their families upside down. At the time, Krikke and Müter were part of the journalistic research collective Opstand. Stichting Opstand conducted research into poverty, asylum policy and resistance. According to the Justice Department, there were close ties between the left-wing terrorist group Revolutionary Anti-Racist Action and the Insurrection Foundation. The Justice Department was prepared to apprehend the perpetrators at any cost.

Now almost 30 years later, son and director Daniel Krikke decides to make a personal documentary about this period. In the film, he travels with his father and talks about these traumatic events and the impact they had on the family. By making this film, Daniel hopes to better understand his father and give the past a place.

Journalistic freedom

As suspects, Krikke and Müter are treated as convicts. After the accusations, they are put under lock and key and subjected to endless interrogations and threats by the judiciary and portrayed in the media as terrorists. Journalistic silences were silenced and it led to a professional ban. Clients wanted nothing more to do with Krikke and Müter. The judiciary uses all means in its ‘fight for democracy’. What follows is a nightmare, an endless struggle for justice by two journalists. But the Justice Department could not substantiate the suspicions and had to dismiss the case. To this day, it is a mystery how this form of criminalization by the justice system could take place.

Public prosecutor on edge

Rara Revolutionary Anti-Racist Action (RaRa) was a Dutch action group whose actions were described by the Internal Security Service as ‘politically violent activism’. RaRa opposed the South African apartheid regime and became known in the 1980s through a bomb attack and a series of fires on branches of the Makro and Shell. The leaders behind RaRa were never caught. In the early 90s, after the umpteenth attack on a petrol station and an attack on the house of State Secretary for Justice Aad Kosto, frustration among the Dutch intelligence services and the Public Prosecution Service piled up. The investigation into RaRa led to nothing. Frustrated that the investigation did not go smoothly, they were willing to do anything to achieve results, which eventually led to the arrest of Müter and Krikke.