Citizens nevertheless start proceedings against rapper Akwasi | Inland

Lawyer Richard van der Weide, who represents the group, will submit the complaint to the Court. The group of concerned citizens is opposed to the prosecutor’s earlier decision not to bring Akwasi to court.

He called out on June 1 during a Black Lives Matter event on Dam Square that if he ‘saw a black pete again in November, he would personally kick it on his face’. The Public Prosecution Service qualified that statement as incitement, but handled the case by having Akwasi publicly apologize. The case was then dropped, to the dismay of many.

Doubt about sincerity

The group of citizens has doubts about the sincerity of the words. “Clients find it very unsatisfactory how the case has been handled,” their counsel Van der Weide stated earlier. “Mr Akwasi, who has a very wide reach, has apologized in their eyes for something that has already taken on a life of its own. The call to violence, for that is how they still see it, has already gone out. ”

It was spicy when it later turned out that the public prosecutor who signed the decision not to prosecute the artist, Jacobien Vreekamp, ​​until recently worked with Kick Out Zwarte Piet (KOZP) activist Mitchell Esajas. Until 20 July, both were on the board of the Meldpunt Discriminatie Regio Amsterdam (MDRA).

When this became known, the Public Prosecution stated that it saw no problem in this, but nevertheless quickly removed Vreekamp from another racism case. It was, it was stated, “because she has now come to be so in the spotlight.”

Apart from the limitations that the corona crisis will have on the party this year, there is still fear among the citizens. Van der Weide: “What if they attend a Sinterklaas entry with their children or grandchildren? Or do they play for Zwarte Piet themselves? Can they then expect violence? They are very concerned about this. ”

According to the guidelines of the Public Prosecution Service, incitement by a public figure carries a community service of 90 hours. The self-proclaimed word artist, who has a large following on social media, renounced his statements via an open letter.

“I am against any form of violence and that includes violence against Black Pete. I hereby distance myself from this offensive passage pronounced on the Dam. ”

‘Superdom’

Whether Akwasi already sees the downpour or not: on Thursday evening he went through the dust again. He called his statements at the Jinek table ‘super stupid.’ “Once again I got carried away by everyone who was there and I thought this feels like that, so I’m going to express this.”

He now says he finds it ‘difficult’ to speak about the meeting in our capital, and says he immediately realized that his words would have a lot of impact when he stepped off the stage. “I was shaking a little. I wasn’t sure what was happening. You are so in the heat of the moment. It is indescribable what happened. ”

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