EHRM: veroordeling in Het Parool van gewelddadige rapper wordt in stand gehouden

EHRM 20 september 2016, IEF 16321; ECLI:CE:ECHR:2016:0920DEC002732314 (Beukering AND HET PAROOL B.V. v. THE NETHERLANDS) Mediarecht. De NPS heeft een documentaire uitgezonden over een Nederlandse rapper. Deze rapper heeft later drie mensen neergestoken, waarvan één overleed. Hij werd veroordeeld tot 12 jaar cel en tbs en in Het Parool verscheen een artikel over hem met als titel ‘Rapper met een kort lontje’, waarin zijn naam werd genoemd en een foto van hem werd geplaatst. De rapper stelde dat er inbreuk werd gemaakt op zijn portretrecht en dat de foto verwijderd moest worden. Het Parool stelde onterecht dat dit toegestaan was o.g.v. persvrijheid. Het EHRM oordeelt dat het feit dat de rapper zelf aan de documentaire meewerkte niet betekent dat Het Parool hem met naam en foto mag portretteren. Er is dan ook sprake van een ernstige inbreuk op de privacy van de rapper. Het staat volgens het Hof niet ter discussie dat Het Parool terecht over de zaak van de rapper berichtte.

25. The image was an important part of the information which the article sought to convey, since the scar next to R.P.’s eye, which was the result of an injury incurred in a fight, was a vivid illustration of how violent and dangerous the youth culture was to which R.P. belonged. Publication of the complete image did not, therefore, serve solely to satisfy the prurience of individuals but reinforced the expressiveness of the article.

26. R.P. was not a public figure, but had willingly entered the public domain by cooperating in the documentary of 2007 devoted exclusively to him. This had reduced his entitlement to protection of his private life. It was from the public domain that the applicants had retrieved the image. In any case, R.P. had neither denied the truth of the information stated in the documentary and the article nor denied the applicants’ right to point out the identity of the perpetrator of the crime in issue with the subject of the 2007 documentary. This meant that there could have been no effect on the fairness of the criminal proceedings either.

27. It was unlikely that publication of the picture had had any effect on the conditions in which R.P. was being detained, or that he was harassed by prison staff or inmates to any greater degree than would otherwise be the case; at all events, R.P. had offered no evidence of such harassment. Moreover, R.P. could not expect speedy release, and so the picture was unlikely to have any effect on his chances on the job market. Any interference with R.P.’s rights under Article 8 was, accordingly, minimal.

34. Turning to the facts of the case, the Court sees no reason to doubt that the newspaper article – which announced the trial of R.P. for having stabbed three members of the staff of a shelter for the homeless in Amsterdam with a knife, killing one and seriously injuring the two others – was a matter of serious public concern. The same may be said about the violent subculture to which R.P. belonged and R.P.’s personal circumstances in so far as they were typical of members of that social group. Nor is there any reason to doubt that R.P. enjoyed a certain notoriety, which he had actively encouraged by giving his cooperation to the 2007 television documentary and the rap clip made available on YouTube; that the article published by the applicants in the newspaper Het Parool and on their web site was true and correct; and that adding the portrait image enhanced the article’s expressive power.

35. In the view of the Court of Appeal, however, these features of the case did not outweigh R.P.’s right to respect for his private life. R.P. was, at the time, suspected of a very serious crime, for which he had yet to be tried; in the words of the Court of Appeal, “in publishing portraits of persons suspected of criminal acts reticence [was], in principle, appropriate.”

36. The Court does not consider that the Court of Appeal acted unreasonably in deciding thus. It considers this view to be supported not only by Principle 8 set out in the Appendix to the Recommendation Rec(2003)13 of the Committee of Ministers to member states on the provision of information through the media in relation to criminal proceedings (see paragraph 21 above) but by its own case-law (see, in particular, Egeland and Hanseid v. Norway, no. 34438/04, § 62, 16 April 2009, and Bédat v. Switzerland [GC], no. 56925/08, §§ 59-60, 80 and 81, ECHR 2016).

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