Ipce, June 27, 2012

Today, a Dutch court has immediately forbidden and dissolved the Dutch Association Martijn.
Prosecutors and individuals have earlier tried to reach this result via the criminal law, which failed because the association had not violated any law.

Than, one person started a petition, signed by 70.000 people, to the Parliament, requesting to forbid and dissolve the association. The debate in the Parliament was awful weak because of the prejudices and untrue statements. The minister has said that it was not possible.

Nevertheless, the prosecutor (who works under the responsibility of the minister) chose another way: the civil law, especially the article that forbids to disturb the peace ('the public order') and to infringe the public morals. She stated that the association infringed the bodily, emotional and sexual integrity of children, which has to be saved by the state according to the law and to international treats and jurisdiction.

The lawyer of the association rejected this, and said to not have infringed any law.

The court said to have studied the public activities of the association: the website as well as several public statements of the board members, done as board members, in several media, including YouTube.
Only those were relevant, neither individual acts of board members in the past, nor texts placed by third parties on the forum and the magazine.

The court concludes that the Association Martijn propagates ...
... that children are a lust object (by explicit photos and descriptions meant to excite);
... that sexual contact between children and adult is OK, that children wanted this and that the law is harmful, not the contact;
... that those sexual contacts have to be celebrated (by giving celebrating descriptions);
... that criminal convictions for immoral acts are ridiculous; and
... those contacts are natural wand wanted by the children, while child pornography may be not harmful.

The lawyer has said that the publications actually are an archive of opinions in the former century, not presenting the opinion of the actual association and its board; they only plead enough room for children who want such contacts, as long as the are free to escape from the contact and as long as the acts harmonize with the stage of development of the child.

The court concludes that the association celebrates those contacts and present them as normal in order to reach sexual contact with children for its members. For that, the association creates a subculture in which such contacts are normal and acceptable. The court acknowledges that spreading any (undesirable) opinion is a constitutional right, but ...
... that the opinions mentioned above are against the fundamental values and norms of society and its legal system, as well as against the fundamental principle that the state has to protect the sexual integrity of children.

Children, said the court, cannot refuse adults, cannot present their own will. Sexual contact between child and adult is far from natural. There is no accepted age or developmental stage that such contacts are normal; just therefore are the moral laws.

The court concludes that the association infringes the peace and the public morals, the fundamentals of our legal system. Just this was the accusation of the prosecutor.

The court decides to forbid and immediately dissolve the Association Martijn.