De Zaak Blok

Biography 'De Zaak Blok' (The Blok Case)

Maarten Blok shares a house with cameraman Fjodor de Lange, eight other squatters and two cats. They live in a squat called 'Nieuwendijk'. One evening in 2003, Fjodor and his second cousin Harm Jan Snijder are sitting in a bar when all squatter-telephone circles beat the alarm: Maarten has been arrested in front of the 'Nieuwendijk'. People arrive from every nook and cranny to prevent a possible police-raid. Yet noone knows why Maarten has been arrested. During the night it slowly transcends that his Gothenburg arrest in 2001 might have something to do with it. The next morning the Dutch police appear to have been instructed to carry out a request for deportation. Fortunately, Maarten is released several days later, but he has been under permanent supervision during his arrest and his freedom has been seriously restricted. This is where the Blok case begins for Fjodor and Harm Jan.

Maarten and (a few) members of his Supportgroup.

A support group which was set up for Maarten has gathered more and more mitigating evidence through the years, mainly consisting of video images, for nowadays demonstrators often film their own actions. However, nobody in the media or the government wants to listen to Maarten's story - despite the fact that independent organizations like Amnesty International and the United Nations have written critical reports about the strange course of events and lawsuits in Gothenburg after the Euro Summit in 2001. One example is the case of a mentally handicapped person who was sentenced to five years imprisonment, solely because he had been watching a riot.

Fjodor de Lange and Harm Jan Snijder started filming the support group actions a while back, partly for reasons of safety, because policemen behave differently when they know they are being filmed. This means the most important goings-on in Gothenburg and elsewhere have been filmed, in many cases by two cameras. After every two or three actions, a film report was edited and shown at 'Vrankrijk', a famous Amsterdam squatters' bar. These short films were subtitled and put on the the support group's extensive websites in streaming video. In the course of 2004 the regular media picked up on Maarten's story. Fragments of some of the tv news broadcasts have been incorporated in 'The Blok Case'. This was possible because Fjodor and Harm Jan have been working in television for some time and could get hold of the original footage through their colleagues. Through the same people they were able to get materials such as a camera, microphone, transmitter or a car during the long period of putting together this documentary.

The Supportgroup tried to get the public's attention for three years.

When, at the end of August 2004, it became clear that Justice Minister Donner had personally given permission for Maarten's extradition to Sweden, Fjodor and Harm Jan decided to follow Maarten for a whole day at home and interview him. Nobody knew how long he would be going away for. Several days later, on the 31st of August 2004, Maarten was indeed put on a plane to Sweden.

Little under a month later, a bus full of friends and relatives left for Gothenburg to attend the legal hearings. Fjodor and Harm Jan travelled separately, by car, together with handyman and experienced squatter Cees. This was not only because they brought a lot of equipment, but also to prevent problems at the border; an old bus full of Dutch activists is bound to be more conspicuous than a normal car with three men.

Amsterdam - Gothenburg: a 22 hour trip by bus ...

On arrival in Gothenburg, Harm Jan received a phone call from his colleagues back home: Dutch daily television news program '2Vandaag' showed interest in a story about Maarten's legal case. The crew immediately began recording interviews and the noise demonstration at Maarten's prison, even though they were tired after having driven the whole night. The evening was used to edit a satellite feed for '2Vandaag'. The next day they recorded another interview, this time with Maarten's mother on her way to the court. Shortly after, they returned to their 'headquarters' in a squatted old shop in the centre of Gothenburg, to paste the recent interview to the prepared footage. After a very nerve-wrecking dump to tape, they rushed to the Swedish national television studios to broadcast the material to the Netherlands. During the last five minutes of '2Vandaag' the producer called: We're sorry, but [Dutch musical hero] André Hazes died today ... so your item will be cancelled. Meanwhile, the sun began to shine and another noise demonstration in support of Maarten took place on a square in the city centre. Local youngsters proved eager to learn from a couple of Dutchmen how to climb a container. There was also a spoof on the Dutch TV-show Wie van de 3, but none too surprisingly, the Swedes didn't really get the joke.

A rented container was used for the climbing course.

The day seemed to come to a peaceful end - until Maarten's lawyer Stig Centerwall phoned the support group. Prompted by a policeman's testimony during the trial earlier that day, he had examined the support group's video images once more. Now he asked for sharp photographs or videocaptures of a certain portion of the tape. After some digging, and aided by a passing Dane, the original video material could be picked up that same evening in Denmark, at the underground press agency LocalEyes. Cees offered to go and drove back and forth to Copenhagen with a few support group members. That same night, the number on the policeman's helmet could be identified from the stills. With the photos of the helmet number in hand, Stig Centerwall was able to prove that the policeman's testimony was false, and thereby that Maarten wasn't guilty of assault and battery. The court ruled that there was no case against him; Maarten was released at about three o'clock the next day.

The editors of '2Vandaag' were informed, and were unexpectantly very interested in the story of Maarten's release. The crew went back to work and interviewed, amongst others, the distraught public prosecutor who argued the case against Maarten himself. He was clearly troubled by the outcome.

Maarten wanted to return to Amsterdam immediately. Two hours later, the bus for Amsterdam could depart -- with Fjodor de Lange aboard. After a three-hour drive, he arrived at the ferry, gasping for air from the 'unpleasant smell' that had enveloped the bus ... Meanwhile, the crew drove at full speed to Hilversum, and handed the editors of '2Vandaag' the tapes with the final interviews the next morning. They drove back to Amsterdam, looking forward to a good sleep, but the phone rang once again: '2Vandaag' couldn't find a cameraman to join their reporter to film Maarten's arrival, would Fjodor perhaps ... Of course they couldn't say no.

Maarten just after his release from jail.

Several days after Maarten's release Harm Jan and Fjodor began sifting through almost 40 hours of rushes and an hour of previously edited action documentaries. They concluded that a longer documentary might be made out of this material. They started working, but Harm Jan suffered a traffic accident on the 4th of November 2004, which delayed their work for half a year. The film was completed on the 4th of November 2005.

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