European Court: Case admissible (1)
01 January 1991
European Court: Case admissible
artdoc July=1993
The European Commission on Human Rights has ruled admissible a
case brought by the editors of the now defunct squatters'
magazine Bluf!. In 1987 Bluf! published the contents of a 48-page
BVD (the Dutch internal security agency) quarterly situation
report from 1981 - it was said to have been be `left' on a train
by a civil servant. The police raided the Bluf! offices and
confiscated the entire edition. The raid had been anticipated
and thousands of copies were printed elsewhere and sold gaining
wide press coverage. The editors demanded the return of the
confiscated edition and compensation for damages, claiming the
police action had no legal ground for their action and that this
was a violation of the fundamental right of a free press. Three
arrests were made during the raid but none were prosecuted. The
case can be expected to take two years before a decision is made.
(see Statewatch vol 3 no 2)
Statewatch vol 3 no 3 May-June 1993