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The death of a man in the Netherlands last month after an attack on a teenager has led the government to take strong action against vigilanteism.
By Isabella Kwai and Claire Moses
When a teenage organization organized an assembly with a 73-year-old former teacher, their goal was clear: to attract and inform someone they thought was a paedophile.
But his assembly last month became a fatal assault, Dutch prosecutors say, sounding the alarm that that justice has gone too far.
The episode, in the east of the city of Arnhem, has worried Dutch officials that a growing number of encounters, led by self-proclaimed “pedal hunters,” can also turn violent. And the government now warns members of the public to avoid taking issues into their own hands, after reporting at least 250 cases since July of others who attracted suspected online paedophiles and reported them to the police.
“We say: stop. Don’t provoke, don’t make arrests. They stop hunting for pedals,” said Simen Klok, a police spokesman, adding that such unverified reports and violent incidents used police resources.
Justice Minister Ferdinand Grapperhaus suggested others contact the police if they suspected abuse.
Eight others have been arrested following the death of the 73-year-old man, and seven remain suspects. Two juveniles remain in custody, according to a spokesman for the prosecutor’s office, who claimed the guy had no known history of sexual abuse. minors.
A lawyer for a suspect told Dutch newspaper De Gelderlander that teenagers planned the assembly out of pandemic boredom without a premeditated plan to attack the man.
In recent years, several online teams have introduced a crusade to eliminate pedophilia around the world. On Facebook, Dutch teams with names like “Pedohunters NL” and “Maskless Paedophiles” have amassed thousands of followers. But the Dutch government says that escalating face-to-face – facing confrontations is a worried new development.
In another incident in Arnhem, an organization that intended to “pursue” someone who thought he was a paedophile had travelled from 3 Dutch provinces and was arrested. Last weekend, another youth organization assaulted a guy they thought was a paedophile in southern Zealand province, sent him to the hospital, according to police, and another guy in Zealand hid this month after his photo was posted to one of Facebook’s surveillance organizations, according to local reports.
Although the reasons for accumulation in such cases in the Netherlands are unclear, experts say the points are likely to come with pandemic constraints, which have allowed more time to go online, and conspiracy theories like QAnon.
“People have a lot more free time since Covid,” said Laura Huey, a professor of sociology at the University of Western Ontario. Joining a can lead to “a thought mindset,” he said, and “extreme behavior can normalize. “
The vigilantes would possibly be motivated through a preference to play detectives or feel that the police are not doing enough work, Huey said. And joining an ideological bubble reinforces “a sense of ethical superiority that is seductive,” he said. allows him to justify many cheeky behaviors. “
Locals sometimes take more from the police and other issues, adding opposed combat to bike theft and the creation of surveillance groups in the neighborhood, said Arnout de Vries, who studied citizen surveys at the NWT, a study group.
The mentality, Mr. de Vries said, is: “Why on your couch waiting for the police to solve the case when you can solve it yourself?”
Authorities and child rights defenders say the fighting is counterproductive, in addition to the injuries and deaths they have caused. Klok, the police spokesman, said that when feelings are high, things go wrong.
And Arda Gerkens, executive director of the Office of Experts on Online Child Abuse, a Dutch organization running to end child sexual abuse, said the practice could eventually obstruct the vigilance of others who pose a risk to minors by keeping them out. in view.
“The way to prevent criminals from committing crimes again is to keep them on a social network where they are monitored and known,” he said.
Viewing pedophiles as an “enemy” to be rid of also diverts attention from the truth of child abuse, he said. Most of those convicted of child sexual abuse in the Netherlands were already in the lives of their victims, sometimes circles of family members, rather than a stranger they met online.
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