A small Dutch town took Twitter to court on Friday to demand the social media giant take down all messages relating to a supposed ring of Satan-worshipping pedophiles that was alleged to have been active in the town in the 1980s.
Bodegraven-Reeuwijk, a town of around 35,000 inhabitants in the middle of the Netherlands, has been the focus of conspiracy theories on social media since 2020, when three men started spreading unfounded stories about the abuse and murder of children they said took place in the town in the 1980s.
I never heard of this before.
The stories caused much unrest in Bodegraven, as scores of followers of the men’s tweets flocked to the local graveyard to lay flowers and written messages at the graves of seemingly random dead children, who they claimed were victims of the satanic ring.
Oh no, not flowers!
Amazing the lengths this "small" town is going to do stop these rumors.
Last year the same court ordered the men to immediately remove all their tweets, threats and other online content relating to the story and to make sure that none of it could ever emerge again.
But despite their conviction, stories about Bodegraven still circulate on social media as others have continued to echo their story, leading the town to take the matter up with Twitter itself.
Man, Roswell needs to try this method and get those darn UFO conspiracy theorist to stop!
“If conspiracy theorists don’t remove their messages, then the platforms involved need to act,” the town of Bodegraven’s lawyer Cees van de Zanden was quoted as saying by Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant on Friday.
Van de Zanden said that in July the town requested Twitter to actively find and remove all messages relating to the Bodegraven story, not only those posted by the three convicted men, but had so far not received an answer from the U.S. company.
The men behind the Bodegraven story are currently all in jail, as they have been convicted in other court cases for incitement and making death threats to a range of people including Prime Minister Mark Rutte and former health minister Hugo de Jonge.
When you go to this many lengths to silence the entire internet, it just makes people more suspicious. No one in this town has experienced anything more dangerous than what they claim were scary notes, but they are getting the men jailed and taking it all the way to Hague to get it wiped from the internet.
They really, REALLY don't want you saying their town was a front for satanic pedophiles. In fact, it's hard to find the original videos or the fuss, but here is some stuff.
Five years later, and more than 7,000 kilometres away, the town of Bodegraven in the Dutch province of South Holland experienced its own Pizzagate moment. One weekend in February 2021, as the Netherlands was experiencing its biggest snowstorm in a decade, the Vredehof cemetery at the edge of the town was overrun with flowers and supportive messages overnight. The bouquets were laid by strangers, many of whom had travelled long distances and had no connection to the town. “For all the victims who are traumatised for life,” read one of the notes left behind on gravestones and along the cemetery driveway. They had been placed in honour of the alleged victims of a network of satanic child abuse, which was rumoured to have occurred in the town of Bodegraven in 1982.
They came in... a SNOWSTORM? In February? That's determination. It looks like they caught the town by surprised. It's like they knew what kind of people live in this town.
How did the town react to flower wreaths being laid?
“By Monday the police came, and we had to move the flowers into a shipping container and take them away from the entrance and the graves.” When the flowers were removed by the municipality, threatening notes appeared throughout the town. The town hall was also bombarded with phone calls, with messages ranging from genuine concern to extreme aggression.
They played victim. They threw the wreaths in the trash like they'd been burned by Holy Water. They screamed and cried. Claimed this was terrorism.
Just like Pizzagate, the Bodegraven story also centred around the idea of a satanic paedophilic cult, this time operating out of a playgroup and kindergarten in this picturesque town in the western Netherlands. The claims came from a former resident, Joost Knevel. In March 2020, Knevel, who has lived in Spain for several years, sent an email to the popular Dutch conspiracy theorist Martin Vrijland, in which he claimed to have recovered memories of satanic abuse and murder from his childhood in the 1980s. Knevel also claimed to have been involved in an MKUltra brainwashing experiment, a CIA operation in the US which ended in 1973. Knevel then joined forces with Wouter Raatgever, a “personal leadership coach” who had been involved in spreading anti-vaccination information, and Micha Kat, an ex-journalist and long-time conspiracy theorist. Soon, the story spread like a wildfire.
Oh no!
And the town sprang into action getting these men who live in DIFFERENT countries tried in international court and thrown in jail. Wow, this town sure has connections to get all that done in such a short span of time. Now they're demanding they be wiped from the internet.
They sure hate sunlight.
He named a local doctor as the central perpetrator of this abuse. But when Raatgever and Kat became involved, a crucial character was added to the narrative. The name of Jaap van Dissel, a key advisor to the Dutch government during the coronavirus pandemic, was also inserted as one of the murderers. A professor in infectious diseases at Leiden University, van Dissel rose to prominence in the Netherlands in 2020 as chairperson of the Outbreak Management Team, a position which led him to become a central target of anti-lockdown and anti-vaccination activists. There is no evidence of him ever having lived in Bodegraven.
I love the word games. He says "I didn't live there", but did he ever visit there? I bet we both know the answer.
As well as identifying the culprits and the victims of this network of satanic abuse, the theory also developed to include other notable Bodegravers. Journalist Natalie Righton and politician Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert were drawn into the story as “elite children” who had been brainwashed and hypnotised, later being given top positions in Dutch society. Righton called these accusations nonsense: “Those people should be ashamed of themselves.”
One of the few YouTube videos which has not been removed by the platform, states that “thousands of people are joining the fight of the three warriors [Kat, Knevel and Raatgever, ed.].” It contains references to the QAnon conspiracy, such as “from dark to light,” a hint at the belief that QAnon followers are fighting a battle between good and evil, and “where we go one, we go all,” a popular rallying cry of the movement.
They sure are hating on Q. This "small" town that instantly knows how to make calls to the international court and get an immediate hearing and sure tech giants. Yeah... right.
On a sunny day in September 2021, there is little evidence in Bodegraven of the bizarre events that occurred there six months earlier. The town of 19,000 inhabitants is classically picturesque Dutch: terraces and gardens overlooking the glistening water which runs past cobbled streets and boutique shops. Residents say hello as they cycle in pairs past each other, they read books on their balconies, trim their hedges and walk their dogs.
They go to great lengths to look normal.
If you cycle five minutes along the Oude Rijn river to the Vredehof cemetery at the very edge of the town, you can see one of the few pieces of evidence that things were not always so tranquil. An “Emergency Ordinance” notice, dated 17th March 2021, still stands at the entrance to the cemetery car park. It outlines the measures that the municipality has taken to combat the actions of the conspiracy theorists. “Since 3rd February 2021, dozens of unknown persons have repeatedly laid flowers in the vicinity of the Vredehof cemetery in Bodegraven and at the graves of children, some with texts that refer to alleged child abuse and/or ‘satanic paedo-terror’.”
Town flipping out over flower wreaths. They are claiming they are being terrorized by flower wreath-layers and scary notes. They've had three men in different countries jailed for instigating this "terrorism". How does a small town get those kind of results so fast?
People still can't get Polanski brought back to the US, but these men get jailed lickity-split for pushing "dangerous ideas".
It continues to describe how these actions caused “great unrest and grief among the next of kin, and seriously disturbed the peace of the graveyard and invaded the privacy of dozens of people.” For these reasons the notice, signed by the mayor, stated that from 17th March to 14th September 2021, anyone who is not a partner or relative of a person buried in the cemetery is prohibited from entering the area other than to attend a funeral. Since the ordinance was put in place the cemetery, which is surrounded by fields as far as the eye can see, has gone back to its usual serenity. Jan and his colleagues at the municipality haven’t had to remove unwelcome flowers and messages in months. “We are just hoping that it stays this way,” he said.
The horror! Horror of flower-wreath terrorism!
That's a lot of 17s in the dates.
In February 2021, both the municipality of Bodegraven and the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), filed complaints against the three men for defamation, slander, and sedition. In June 2021, the national association of municipal health services (GGDs) also filed a complaint related to the Telegram message group operated by the men, The Batavian Republic, in which they had threatened workers at the vaccination centres.
But the wreath event happened in February. So the municipality acted the same month and rushed to have the men jailed for SEDITION?! Sedition? For saying the town had a satanic ritual in the 80s? How the hell is that SEDITION?
However, falsehoods about Bodegraven continue to circulate online, and for those at the centre of the conspiracy—the relatives of the deceased, the accused, and the authorities—the ordeal is not over. While legal proceedings are ongoing, and Knevel, Raatgever, and Kat are all currently imprisoned, their followers are still active on social media.
Someone is determined to SILENCE anyone who talks about this town at all costs.
I wasn't aware of these, ahem, issues going on in the Netherlands. You don't generally hear much about their royalty. I guess now we know why -- they don't want any of it known.
u/lonewulf
u/dty6
u/rooftoptendie
*Bodegraven
Strangest story. I had not even heard of this, but what a curious story:
https://nypost.com/2022/09/16/dutch-town-sues-twitter-to-take-down-satan-worshipping-pedophiles-posts/
I never heard of this before.
Oh no, not flowers!
Amazing the lengths this "small" town is going to do stop these rumors.
Man, Roswell needs to try this method and get those darn UFO conspiracy theorist to stop!
When you go to this many lengths to silence the entire internet, it just makes people more suspicious. No one in this town has experienced anything more dangerous than what they claim were scary notes, but they are getting the men jailed and taking it all the way to Hague to get it wiped from the internet.
They really, REALLY don't want you saying their town was a front for satanic pedophiles. In fact, it's hard to find the original videos or the fuss, but here is some stuff.
https://www.daretobegrey.com/stories/the-radicalisation-gateway
They came in... a SNOWSTORM? In February? That's determination. It looks like they caught the town by surprised. It's like they knew what kind of people live in this town.
How did the town react to flower wreaths being laid?
They played victim. They threw the wreaths in the trash like they'd been burned by Holy Water. They screamed and cried. Claimed this was terrorism.
Oh no!
And the town sprang into action getting these men who live in DIFFERENT countries tried in international court and thrown in jail. Wow, this town sure has connections to get all that done in such a short span of time. Now they're demanding they be wiped from the internet.
They sure hate sunlight.
I love the word games. He says "I didn't live there", but did he ever visit there? I bet we both know the answer.
They sure are hating on Q. This "small" town that instantly knows how to make calls to the international court and get an immediate hearing and sure tech giants. Yeah... right.
They go to great lengths to look normal.
Town flipping out over flower wreaths. They are claiming they are being terrorized by flower wreath-layers and scary notes. They've had three men in different countries jailed for instigating this "terrorism". How does a small town get those kind of results so fast?
People still can't get Polanski brought back to the US, but these men get jailed lickity-split for pushing "dangerous ideas".
The horror! Horror of flower-wreath terrorism!
That's a lot of 17s in the dates.
But the wreath event happened in February. So the municipality acted the same month and rushed to have the men jailed for SEDITION?! Sedition? For saying the town had a satanic ritual in the 80s? How the hell is that SEDITION?
Someone is determined to SILENCE anyone who talks about this town at all costs.
u/lonewulf
Wow, do you mean this one:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatrix_of_the_Netherlands
I wasn't aware of these, ahem, issues going on in the Netherlands. You don't generally hear much about their royalty. I guess now we know why -- they don't want any of it known.
https://greatawakening.win/p/15Jn6djvom/im-just-going-to-point-out-what-/c/
True.
u/lonewulf
u/dty6
u/rooftoptendie
https://pedoempire.org/chapter-36-netherlands-the-pedophile-kingdom-and-sodom-and-gomorrah-of-the-modern-world/
Whew, when the UK royal family looks clean by comparison, you know the Dutch royality has got a pedo problem.
The UK royal family only looks clean by comparison because no one's lifted all of the royal rugs and looked under them yet.