JW Akster / the editor-in-chief of the Reformatorisch Dagblad

Summary

In the article “Financial director Timotheos arrested again”, the Reformatorisch Dagblad
reported biasedly on the complainant by stating without proper grounds that he had been arrested
on suspicion of indecent acts with several underage girls and by
giving the impression that he was actually guilty of this. Although the later article “New case against
ex-employee Timotheos” presented a more balanced picture of the matter,
it suggested – again without proper grounds – that the complainant might have abused several underage
girls. Furthermore, the mention of the complainant’s name
constituted a disproportionate infringement of his privacy. The Reformatorisch Dagblad
therefore acted journalistically carelessly. The Dutch Press Council
recommends that the Reformatorisch Dagblad
publish this conclusion generously.

Conclusion of the Council for Journalism
regarding the complaint of

JW Akster

in return for

the editor-in-chief of the Reformatorisch Dagblad

Mr JW Akster of Blantyre, Malawi (complainant) filed a complaint against the editor-in-chief of the Reformatorisch Dagblad (RD) on 28 August 2021. After the secretary had informed the complainant about the complaint procedure, the complainant sent additional documents to the Council on 1, 6 and 13 September 2021. The assessment of the complaint also took into account correspondence from the parties dated 13 October 2021, 7 and 10 January 2022 and 17 and 18 February 2022.

The complaint was dealt with at the digital session of the Council on 25 February 2022. Mr RGS Pennino, lawyer in Heerlen, appeared on behalf of the complainant. Ms E. Hoekman, editor, Mr S. de Bruijn, editor-in-chief, and Ms DM Wille, lawyer in Amsterdam, were present on RD's side. The parties explained their positions using notes.

THE FACTS

On September 24, 2020, an article appeared on the RD website with the headline “Financial director Timotheos arrested again” . The intro of the article reads:
“JW Akster, the financial director of the Timotheos Foundation in Malawi who is currently inactive, was arrested by the Malawian police on Thursday afternoon on suspicion of indecent acts with several underage girls.”
The article includes the following passages:
“ Sources from Malawi reported this, and research agency Restment confirmed this on Thursday. The Putten agency is aware of the evidence and photos. The victims were questioned by the police on Wednesday and have made statements. Akster is back in jail.
Akster was arrested in Malawi on April 15 on suspicion of sexually abusing Malawian men. After a week in jail, he was released on bail. The board of Stichting Timotheos suspended him. A court case in Malawi will probably follow in a few weeks.
The board of Stichting Timotheos announced in a press release distributed on Friday that it was informed of the arrest on Thursday evening around a quarter past seven. “Much is still unclear and efforts are being made to gain more clarity about this charge as soon as possible. As far as the board is aware now, the hearing will take place on Friday.”
The board further states that it takes the accusations against Akster “extremely seriously” and that it “will consider this further in the short term.””
and:
“Spokesman Johan Arends responded Friday morning that the support group was “overwhelmed by this shocking and sad news once again. Our sympathy goes out to all victims. We will redouble our efforts to ensure that all those involved take full responsibility.””

Furthermore, on June 5, 2021, an article appeared on the RD website with the headline “New case against ex-employee Timotheos”. The intro of that article reads:
“A new case was filed on Friday at a court in Blantyre in Malawi against Wim Akster, former financial director of the Dutch Timotheos Foundation. It concerns a charge of sexual abuse.” 
The article continues:
“The case was brought by several non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from Malawi. It is a follow-up to an earlier complaint.
A photo from 2017 circulated on social media showing four girls – estimated to be between twelve and fourteen years old – having sexual contact with a white man. However, other sources state that it is not four girls but three, who are not minors. The police and the NGOs have indicated that they want to further investigate the age of those involved.
Investigators have been able to determine the identity of one of the girls. She identified Akster as the perpetrator. She told the police that she is 23, so she was probably 19 years old when the sexual contact took place.
Incidentally, the girl was a pupil at a school of the Stéphanos foundation. Timotheos was founded in 2011 after a conflict between, among others, Akster and Stéphanos. The girl and Akster had both left Stéphanos in 2017.
Another Malawian court last week dismissed an earlier case against Akster, which involved a charge of abuse and human trafficking of the same girl. The judge ruled that the case had been pending for long enough to dismiss it, as Akster had requested. “The delays by the state in prosecuting the case within a reasonable time violated Wim Akster’s right to a fair trial as provided for in the constitution,” the judge said.
The judge also ruled that the state is free to reopen the case when the evidence is available.
Akster is also suspected of sexually abusing three men and six students who were attending Timotheos-funded education. This case was referred to the Constitutional Court in Malawi on 10 May.
Akster has not yet responded to the new charge. He did send out a letter after it became clear on 28 May that he was not prosecuted. In the letter he discusses, among other things, the photo from 2017. “My arm had been removed from a Facebook photo and pasted onto a photo with naked girls,” Akster writes. “I have never done such things and am completely innocent.”
About the dismissed case he writes: “Of course the prosecutor shouts that he has evidence etc., but why hasn't he submitted it all this time? That is why we requested an annulment.”

THE POSITIONS OF THE PARTIES

The complainant states, in short, the following. He is involved in two legal cases in Malawi: a criminal case concerning (alleged) transgressive behaviour and human trafficking concerning a then 19-year-old woman and a constitutional case concerning homosexuality. These are human rights, where the question is whether homosexuality may still be punishable in this day and age. The hearing of that case has now been postponed until April 2022.
The article from September 2020 was published following his arrest in the first case. According to the complainant, this article is tendentious, because it refers to 'victims'. This wrongly suggests that he has already been convicted. The complainant emphasises that he has denied the allegations. Furthermore, the RD has not sufficiently explained on the basis of which sources it was written that he was arrested on suspicion of indecent acts with 'minors'. That is factually incorrect; it concerns a charge from one non-minor woman. The complainant had not previously complained about this article, because he had been instructed by his lawyer in Malawi not to discuss the case while it was before the courts. After the case was dismissed in May 2021, he turned to the RD in early June 2021 with his objections to the publication.
Furthermore, the June 2021 article wrongly suggests that this is a second indecent assault case. The complainant also believes it was careless that he had to read in the RD what the charges against him were, without being informed by the police, and that his family and friends had to learn from the RD that he had been arrested.
In response to the RD's position, the complainant questioned the reliability of the sources. One of the sources is not of good conduct, the other pressured the woman in question to make a false statement to the complainant's detriment and the photos show a man who, given his build, is clearly not the complainant.
Finally, the complainant finds it incorrect that his full name is mentioned in both articles, since no conviction has yet taken place.
The complainant concludes that the RD acted carelessly by reporting only one-sidedly and negatively about him. Matters that are neutral or positive for him are not published.

The RD first argues that the complaint about the 2020 article was submitted too late and therefore does not qualify for substantive consideration. In the event that the Council nevertheless decides to assess that complaint, the RD explains that the developments concerning Timotheos and the complainant are relevant and newsworthy. It concerns alleged abuses at an organisation that has funds made available by the RD's supporters for missionary work in Malawi. The publication therefore contributes to the social debate that is taking place within the RD readership.
According to the RD, the publications are not incorrect or tendentious. The sources on the basis of which reports are made about a suspicion of indecent acts with minors are mentioned in the September 2020 article. At the hearing, the RD stated, when asked, that the publication is based on three sources: the local RD journalist, a former Dutch detective who works in Malawi for Love Justice and wished to remain anonymous, and research agency Restment. The editors do not have a report from the Restment research agency, but received the information from an employee of that agency. That local journalist also spoke to the police directly about this at the time.
Furthermore, the June 2021 article discusses the accusation of sexual abuse in a nuanced manner. For example, it states that the age of those involved is unclear and is being investigated further.
The fact that the complainant's name is mentioned is because the 2020 reporting is based on a press release from Timotheos in which his name was also mentioned. Moreover, the complainant is well-known among the RD readership and everyone knew that he was the financial director of Timotheos, and mentioning that position was relevant to the reporting. The use of initials would have an unnecessarily criminalising effect.
According to the RD, the matter has been reported in a balanced and truthful, verifiable and as complete as possible. The fact that the complainant, his family and friends had to learn certain circumstances from the newspaper cannot be blamed on the RD.

ASSESSMENT OF THE TIMELINESS OF THE SUBMISSION OF THE COMPLAINT
insofar as it is directed against the article of 24 September 2020

According to Article 2a of the Regulations, a complainant must first submit his objections about a publication to the medium concerned before he can submit his complaint to the Council. This must be done within three months after the journalistic conduct to which the complainant objects took place. The medium then has a maximum of one month to deal with the complaint. The complainant can then submit his complaint to the Council, no later than six months after the publication in question. If a complaint is not submitted on time, it will not be dealt with substantively, but it will be limited to the observation that the complaint was not submitted on time. This observation will not be made if it must reasonably be concluded that the complaint should not be attributable to the complainant.

The complainant has argued that he was instructed by his lawyer in Malawi not to speak publicly about the criminal case relating to the 19-year-old woman’s accusation while it was before the courts. For that reason, he failed to submit his complaint to the RD and the Council within the time limits set out above.

The Council considers it plausible that the complainant was not free to speak about the case until the criminal case was dismissed (in May 2021). This was also not disputed by the RD.

The circumstances put forward by the complainant can be regarded as special circumstances that make the exceeding of the term excusable, so that the complaint can be dealt with substantively. In this respect, the Council also takes into account that the complainant turned to the RD with his objections shortly after the dismissal.

ASSESSMENT OF THE COMPLAINT

The core of the complaint is that the complainant has been reported on in a biased manner, because he has been linked to the abuse of underage girls without any sound basis, whereby the impression has been given that he is actually guilty of this, while his full name has also been mentioned. The Council will confine itself to this core.

The Council states that the media have an important task in exposing abuses in society. It is socially and journalistically relevant to investigate and/or report on criminal cases involving indecent acts or abuse, perhaps partly facilitated by the financial dependence of the victims, by a director of a missionary organisation. In this respect, the journalist and his editorial staff are free to select news. It is up to the journalist to determine from which angle(s) a subject is discussed and in what context the report is presented. This does not alter the fact that the interest served by a publication must be weighed against the interests that may be harmed by the publication. Furthermore, the reporting must be truthful and verifiable, whereby the sources are in principle stated in publications and accusations are only published when it has been investigated whether there is a sound basis for this.

With regard to the reporting of September 2020, the RD argued that the sources were mentioned therein. The article stated in this regard:
“Sources from Malawi reported this, and research agency Restment confirmed this. The Putten agency is aware of evidence and photos.”
The fact that 'sources from Malawi' reported this arrest is insufficiently concrete and cannot be verified. The RD journalist who works in Malawi and – according to the RD's explanation at the hearing – is said to have spoken to the police, was not named as such. Moreover, the article in no way includes the fact that he heard from the police that the complainant had been arrested on suspicion of abusing underage girls. And also with regard to the other source – the former Dutch detective – no information was included in the article and no explanation was given as to why this was mentioned anonymously.
Furthermore, it emerged at the hearing that the RD had seen no evidence, for example from the research agency, that the complainant had been arrested for the aforementioned reason.
The complainant has substantiated the reliability of the sources, while the Council does not have the possibility to verify the information provided by the RD at the hearing in any way.
The Council concludes that the RD has not made the sources in the reporting sufficiently transparent and that, moreover, it cannot be established that there is a sound basis for the reporting of September 2020, stating that the complainant had been arrested on suspicion of indecent acts with several underage girls.
The complainant has also correctly argued that the use of the word 'victims' (instead of: 'alleged victims') wrongly gave the impression that he was actually guilty of the alleged suspicion.

At the time of publication in June 2021, it was known that the charges of abuse and human trafficking of the then 19-year-old woman had been dropped. Although this article paints a more balanced picture of the issue, it suggests – again without sound basis – that the complainant may have abused multiple underage girls.

The above is all the more pressing, since the complainant's name is mentioned in both articles. In a publication, the privacy of individuals may not be further infringed than is reasonably necessary in the context of the reporting. An infringement of privacy is negligent if it is not in reasonable proportion to the social interest of the publication.
Given the explanation of the RD, the social relevance of the reporting lies in the complainant's function as director of Stichting Timotheos. The omission of the complainant's name does not detract from this.
Furthermore, the RD has stated that the complainant is generally known to the reading public. However, the RD has not submitted any recent publications from which the Council can conclude this. Moreover, the complainant's traceability is not limited to the readership of the RD; through the online publications he is identifiable to a wider audience.
Finally, the RD has pointed out that Stichting Timotheos had already mentioned the complainant in its press release. However, in that press release, the complainant was not linked to indecent acts with minors.
In view of what the Council has considered above with regard to the content of the reporting, this leads to the conclusion that the mention of the complainant's name constitutes a disproportionate infringement of his privacy.

The foregoing leads to the conclusion that the Reformatorisch Dagblad acted journalistically negligently.

Relevant points from the Guideline: A, B.2, C and C.1
Relevant previous conclusions: RvdJ 2021/19 , RvdJ 2020/2 and RvdJ 2016/19

CONCLUSION

The Reformatorisch Dagblad acted journalistically negligently.

The Council recommends that the Reformatorisch Dagblad publish this conclusion in full or in summary.

As determined by the Council on 25 April 2022 by Mr. JW Bockwinkel, chairman, Mrs. Dr. J. Luttikhold, A. Olgun, HPMJ Schneider and Mrs. Drs. SS Sitalsing, members, in the presence of Mrs. DC Koene, secretary, and Mr. GA van de Sluis, deputy secretary.