solidarity actions for imprisoned eu demonstrator awaiting trial 3 years after the summit

international | crime and justice | news report Tuesday September 21, 2004 00:34 by nina

The trial of Maarten Blok will take place in gothenburg this thursday and
friday. he is unjustfully charged for"supposedly having hit a police
officer during the EU summit in Sweden in june 2001. He was extradited
from Holland to Sweden 3 weeks ago and has been sitting in prison in
Gothenburg since, waiting for his trial.
below follows info on solidarty actions taking
place.
Please let others know of the unjust being done
by the swedish state and by the dutch for
extraditing him!

Protest Meetings in five European cities during Maarten Blok’s trial

During the first day of Maarten Blok’s trial in Sweden, on September 23d,
protest meetings will take place in five main European cities, namely in
Goteborg, Stockholm, Helsinki, Oslo and Amsterdam. A group of 40 people
from the Netherlands will travel to Sweden to demonstrate there and to
attend the trial. These protest meetings are not just aimed at the
extradition of the 23 year old Amsterdam bicycle mechanic and his being
tried in the controversial Goteborg court, but also at the many
irregularities that occurred at that court during dozens of earlier cases
pertaining to the 2001 Euro Summit.
Another reason for the protest meetings is the appeal in the penal case
against the ex chief of police, Hakan Jaldung, which will take place two
weeks later. This chief of police, responsible for the situation
surrounding Maarten’s arrest, has been accused of unlawful deprivation of
liberty as well as grave errors while on duty. His earlier acquittal has
caused a big uproar in Sweden.

More information about the protest meetings:
http://www.steunmaarten.org/manifestations.htm

During the session about his remand Maarten’s having (legally) resisting
his extradition was heavily held against him. He was also held personally
responsible for the political attention surrounding his extradition caused
among other things by the activities of his Support Group, letters to the
Justice Minister and questions asked by members of Parliament, a very bad
state of affairs according to the prosecutor. Because of this the
political character of this trial is to be feared. Also in earlier cases
people who 'stood accused' of being politically active received
substantially higher sentences.

The trial
Maarten Blok is accused of striking a police officer on top of a shipping
container that was part of the surrounding wall of the Hvitfedtska school
which had been made available to demonstrators. Although the prosecutor
admits that video images show Maarten was behaving calmly on top of the
shipping container and didn’t hit any police he states that in that case
this striking must have taken place at some other moment. The time stated
in the preliminary inquiry has been dropped and now the accusation
contains no mention whatsoever anymore about when Maarten is supposed to
have struck the officer. That half of the file is actually about a
different Dutchman and all witnesses contradict each other regarding the
suspect’s appearance while none of their descriptions are consistent with
Maarten’s looks, is being dismissed by the prosecutor as irrelevant. The
photo line-up in which Maarten’s photo is of an essentially different
quality than the other photos as well as having the letters NL appear in
the corner has disappeared from the file and it’s now being claimed that
this line-up has never been used. Four witnesses from four different
countries will attend the trial and confirm Maarten’s story. In the
Swedish court however so far police witnesses have turned out to be
considered infallible even if their statements are contradictory. So it is
to be feared that despite everything Maarten will be convicted although he
is innocent.

for more info see http://www.steunmaarten.org
there you will also find the adress you can write to maarten at.