Gunman kills Dutch left-wing activist PDF Print E-mail
evel - spin.off
This week's SpinWatchNewsletter arrives two days late. The main reason is the funeral I attended yesterday of a befriended collegue, Louis Sévèke. He was brutally murdered on Tuesday last week, shot in the head twice in his hometown Nijmegen. His life was dedicated to supporting people in their fight for their rights, his main issue was monitoring the police and intelligence with a focus on local departments.

It is difficult to see this as not a political assasination.

Louis was involved in exposing infiltrators and secret service involvement for almost 20 years. Some of his research was in joint projects with buro Jansen & Janssen, and with me.

We don't know who shot him, and we don't want to speculate about where this is coming from, to prevent useless hypes in the press. The situation has been pretty tensed after 11 people died in a fire at a detention centre near Schiphol airport a few weeks ago. Banners blaiming the politics of the Minister of Integration affairs where taken down by riot police after a minor damage to her office window was spinned into a bullet hole by her own PR department.

More on:

The legal battle about the banners, and the Schiphol fire.

Louis recent articles, put on line by buro Jansen & Janssen

Netherlands: Local political activist shot dead in Nijmegen

Report from: Buro Jansen & Janssen,

"Local political activist Louis Seveke was shot dead in Nijmegen on Tuesday night, November 15th, 2005, his friends and the police have confirmed.

Seveke, 41, was walking on the Van Welderenstraat in the city at about 9.30pm when the killer approached and shot him twice.

The police have declined to speculate on a possible motive for the murder or whether it was premeditated. Forensic experts carried out a technical investigation at the scene of the murder to search for clues. Detectives are looking for witnesses.

Seveke was a left-wing activist who was known for at least 20 years in Nijmegen as a campaigner against alleged abuse of power by the police.

He established the Steunpunt Informatiedienst Politie Nijmegen (SIP Nijmegen), which took numerous legal cases against the security service BVD (now AIVD) for maintaining files on political activists.

Many people were granted access in the 1990s to the files compiled on them thanks in part to campaigning by SIP Nijmegen.

Seveke also led the Werkgroep Klachten Politieoptreden (WKP), a working group that lobbied against unfair treatment of people arrested by the police. The WKP was in the national news recently for supporting people arrested for refusing to carry official identification.

News agency ANP reported that Seveke regularly visited the live-in activist centre 'De Grote Broek'. The police have carried out raids at this building and other activist centres in Nijmegen in recent days to remove posters criticising the tough policies of Immigration and Integration Minister Rita Verdonk.

Seveke's shocked friends and associates held gatherings in three locations in Nijmegen on Tuesday night after hearing about the murder."

I will keep you posted.

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