Letter GGZ treatment group following Hendriks committee final report: independent second opinion necessary!

Hendriks committee final report severely underwhelming and half-hearted -

independent second opinion necessary

Amsterdam, 19 January 2023

Honourable representatives of the people,

The Hendriks committee report was released recently. According to the motion, the committee would investigation into organised sadistic abuse of children independently, investigate the nature and extent of organised sadistic child abuse and, on the basis of that independent investigation, come to a recommendation for investigation. The result is extremely disappointing.

Conclusions and recommendations of the Hendriks report

The main conclusion drawn by the report is that organised sadistic abuse exists. However, this conclusion is weakened and undermined in many ways throughout the report, see points 7, 8, 10 and 12 in the annex to this letter. The committee makes a whole range of recommendations, including the establishment of a hotline. Advice is given on better access to expert and long-term assistance, the promotion and sharing of expertise and knowledge (through a knowledge centre, training and research), the development of resources, shelters (safe houses), better guidance on reporting and investigation and better cooperation within police components.

Why this report is severely underwhelming

As we, a group of 20 mental health practitioners, have pointed out in a number of earlier letters to the second chamber, the fundamental problem with this committee and its investigation is that it was not independent. Indeed, the enquiry took place under the auspices of the Ministry of Justice. Many survivors, including those we speak to, tell us that the perpetrator network of this heinous form of human trafficking and abuse, deliberately infiltrates the upper echelons of the police and the judiciary, among others, enabling political and official influence. This is precisely why independence was essential for this study, so that survivors would have confidence that it was safe and meaningful to talk. This meant that a significant part of the target group of this study, was excluded from participation in advance. For example, the group of survivors we represent, who tell a lot of stories of involvement from high-ranking people, did not dare or want to talk[1]. The committee does not mention this major limitation of its study; indeed, the preface explicitly omits it[2]. Seen our extensive email exchange with the Hendriks committee and 7 letters to the House of Representatives, it can be ruled out that she was unaware of our decision not to cooperate and the reasons for it.

In addition, the committee did not comply with the mandate of the House of Representatives. The text of the motion implies that truth-telling would be carried out. After all, without the objective of truth-seeking (not meant here in the criminal sense), what is the point of such an enquiry[3]? Besides, the motion was a direct result of the Argos broadcast, Argos' investigation revealed that there was striking overlap between specific elements of the testimonies of many survivors.[4] That cries out for truth-telling! However, the committee decided on its own to do precisely NOT truth-telling. In addition, it spoke to only 23 survivors, less than one-eighth of the number that participated in the Argos investigation (200).[5]

In short, this committee did not comply with its mandate and was not independent. The contents of the report amply confirm that there was indeed no unbiased, independent investigation here. This makes the report severely underwhelming and half-hearted. It makes the recommendations generic, and some even dangerous[6]. In the annex to this letter, we elaborate on the bias and lack of independence in some 14 points.

In summary, this concerns the following issues:

• preemptively and deliberately excluding truth-telling;
• excluding a large proportion of survivors from the study;
• failure to take into account the possible scenario of high-level officials being involved in the abuse; this makes advice on detection meaningless in advance:
• very incompletely reproduced testimonies of the few survivors who did talk to;
• the limited place these first-hand testimonies occupy in the entire investigation and the limited number of questions they were asked as evidenced by the questionnaire (see annex 4) that was used for the interviews with survivors.
• the credibility of survivors is questioned in more and less subtle ways throughout the report;
• once again, the scientifically unsubstantiated view that many therapists talk their clients into a history of SRM gets ample attention;
• therapists and survivors who may have supporting evidence were not heard and this is not mentioned in the report;
• unfairly questioning DIS and programming (extreme conditioning);
• failure to designate involvement of high-ranking officials in failed court proceedings as supporting evidence for survivors' claims that high-ranking officials were involved in the perpetrator network.

All this makes this report not only woolly and superficial, but even tendentious and suggestive. In the end, the outcome is dull and the recommendations make no impact. In addition to the 14 objections we raised, you can also read the hefty criticism from other interest groups via the following links: Spotlight, KTGG and Abused Foundation.

Independent second opinion needed

It is clear that this investigation has missed a wealth of information and thus does not do justice to the mandate of the House of Representatives from the motion, is not a response to the cry for help that emanated from the Argos broadcast and in no way does justice to the horrific suffering of children and adults trapped in organised sadistic abuse. We would therefore urge for an independent 'second opinion' by a new, independent commission.    

This 'second opinion', in line with the original motion, should indeed aim to establish the truth. It should focus on gathering as much information as possible from as many survivors and therapists as possible. In a way that victims can handle, they should be asked concrete questions about names, locations, faces, ways of working and other specific details that give as concrete a picture as possible. In doing so, it is important that the enquiry committee does not rush, but takes the time to build a trusting relationship with survivors. This is crucial to get good information. Overlap should also be actively sought. If the committee manages to generate sufficient trust, it is quite conceivable that there will be survivors who dare to bring supporting evidence. For example, visual material, threatening emails, injected tracers, etc. could be considered.

Another method that could be a step forward in terms of truth-telling is to have the committee submit 'cold cases' to survivors, asking if they have any information about them. Missing persons and murders come to mind. Survivors should also have the opportunity to submit crimes they have information on. These can also be 'solved' cases, where new information from survivors could show that there was a miscarriage of justice, so that the wrong person was convicted. Former judges (retired), lawyers, journalists, former investigators (all of course screened by a sounding board group of survivors, see explanation later in this letter) can be part of the committee and contribute their expertise. In doing so, the committee needs the authority to see police files of the relevant 'cold cases and crimes, as well as closed files of already solved cases.

The most rigorous way of shaping the new committee is by installing a parliamentary inquiry committee. This allows the committee to question individuals - including government ministers - under oath; this is another way to test information the committee may obtain through survivors. 

The design of this 'second opinion' must take into account from the very beginning the possibility that the many survivors who speak of involvement of many a high-ranking person are telling the truth. Needless to say, if what they put forward is true, a truly independent 'second opinion' faces a lot of opposition and obstruction and will be a complex affair. Such an investigation, therefore, requires the utmost commitment, passion and dedication. But so do the motives: the gruesome sadistic torture at issue here are crimes against humanity and the foundations of our rule of law are severely compromised if perpetrators hold high-ranking positions in our society.

Earlier, our practitioner group identified a number of preconditions that we believe are essential to ensure independence. We refer to the firebrand which we sent to you earlier. We want to reiterate the absolute necessity of a sounding board group of survivors. In addition, when composing a sounding board group, survivors who are known to our practitioners' group will also have to be represented, because this is precisely a group who, based on their experiences, are convinced of the involvement of high-ranking people in, among others, the police and the judiciary. By the way, Michiel van Nispen was the first to suggest the idea of a sounding board group, see the Nederlands Dagblad of 3 October 2020, in which he pointed out that it is very important that the victims 'form a sounding board when choosing committee members, so that not the people about whom rumours are going around get into such a committee'. It is deeply regrettable that this path was not followed by the Hendriks committee.

Call

When on December 7, 2021, a motion[7] was tabled to have the Hendriks committee dissolved and an independent investigation launched, the vast majority of you - besides a number of abstentions - supported the explanation of vote given by Ms Lisa Westerveld (GL). The arguments put forward in this explanation of vote, including the assertion that it would delay, are - to the extent they ever had validity - now irrelevant. After all, the Hendriks committee is finished and the recommendations can be put to work if desired^[8]. An independent second opinion does not prevent the implementation of the Hendriks committee's opinions.

We call on you to make your contribution so that an honest attempt is made to uncover the truth. If ever there was a time to stand up for your personal beliefs, against the prevailing course of the party if necessary, it is now. There are issues worth risking your 'good reputation' or your position in the party for. Children being exploited in an organised manner and given over, among other things, to highly sadistic and violent gang rape, strangulation sex, waterboarding, forced abortions and even being forced into 'culpability' in this kind of heinous practice - in our Netherlands - it deserves your sincere attention and vote.

We therefore urge you to file a motion to commission an independent 'second opinion', with a clear mandate to find out the truth, taking utmost care to guard the independence, as outlined in this letter.

We are happy to provide further clarification on this letter at any time.

Kind regards,

The group of 20 mental health practitioners,

Ms A.S. Terpstra-van Hijum (contact person), GZ psychologist BIG
Ms M. Beekman - de Haan, Msc. behavioural scientist
Ms J. Boogaard-Blom, physician-psychotherapist BIG
Ms A.F. Denekamp-van Toor, occupational therapist, BCZ registered therapist
Ms C. Hamoen, psychologist
Anonymous
Mr Dr R. Filius, GZ-psychologist-psychotherapist
Mr J. Konstapel, psychologist NIP
Anonymous
Anonymous
Anonymous
Ms H. Mateboer-Selles, GZ-psychologist BIG
Ms D. Mazzolari, GZ-psychologist BIG
Ms T.A. van Neerbos, (child and adolescent) psychiatrist BIG
Mr. Msc. J. Sarmiento, GZ-psychologist BIG
Mr J. Vreugdenhil, GZ-psychologist-psychotherapist
Ms C. van Voornveld-de Pender, GZ-psychologist BIG
Anonymous
Anonymous
Ms M. Wielart, psychologist/psychotherapist

ANNEX - Fourteen objections showing that the Hendriks Commission report is biased and not independent

1. The commission argues that it does not engage in truth-telling (Foreword, Pag. 2; Introduction, "What does the committee understand by organised sadistic abuse of minors?", Pag. 12). By taking this stance, the committee a priori shirks its responsibility. After all, truth-telling was implied in the motion^[9]. Truth-telling is more than truth-telling for the purpose of legal prosecution, as the committee suggests. Think first and foremost of the Committee's own research findings that it has gained or should have gained over the past 1.5 years. And further to indications in society, assessment of domestic and foreign investigative reports, etc. And yes, truth-telling is complicated in this matter, but not even trying when it is your brief makes this committee a "toothless tiger" in advance. As Foundation Abused! rightly states, 'if the Deetman committee had dealt with victims of abuse in the Catholic Church in this way, we would still think today that nothing was wrong.'

2. The possibility that senior figures, including from police/Justice could be involved has not even been considered. Thus, this possibility is also not involved when considering detection methods. This makes the recommendations on reporting a priori questionable and, in our opinion, even pointless to implement.
   To illustrate, the Police TBKK team also visited one of the undersigned (A. Terpstra) because the team would like to examine the supporting evidence she has on the Esther case. The file would be stored in a special way for security purposes. When she asked whether high-ranking police officers could therefore not access the file, the answer was that this could not be prevented. Only if there were strong indications that high-ranking officers were involved could additional measures possibly be taken. It goes without saying that such an attitude by the TBKK leads to deadlock and not detection. After all, suppose Esther or another survivor were to share her information with the TBKK, high-ranking police and judicial officials could therefore access the survivor's information. Suppose it is true that high-ups in these circles are involved in the perpetrator network, then they could pass on this information to this perpetrator network. This would give a survivor who still has one foot in the cult new torture and an even higher threshold to ever talk again. In addition, the then well-informed perpetrator network then has all the room it needs to obscure evidence during the trial.
   So, with survivors consistently telling of involvement of very senior people in the perpetrator network for decades, this should at least be included as a hypothesis in investigative methods or hotlines to be set up.

3. The committee heard only 22 survivors, compared to 200 (140 of them with ritual characteristics) heard by Argos. So a very large proportion of the survivors with whom Argos spoke did not go and talk to the committee. Many other survivors, including those known to our treatment group, also did not dare to talk to this committee. In our firm impression, these are precisely survivors who tell a lot about involvement of high-ranking people.

4. Although the Hendriks committee knew in advance that it was excluding a large group of survivors from participating in the study, it did not name this as such in the report. Indeed, factual inaccuracies have been written about this, see footnote 2 of this letter. The failure to name this important point does not benefit the quality and reliability of the study - it actually undermines its scientificity and reliability.

5. The list of questions put to survivors is very thin (see annex 4 of the 'victims have their say' sub-report). The content of what information was retrieved was therefore limited in advance partly because of the method of operation. More in-depth and specific details about e.g. programming, (organisation of) the perpetrator network, involvement of high-ranking officials or related matters were not, according to the questionnaire, asked in depth. Also, according to the report, the courageous survivors were not given the opportunity (apart from the telephone contact the day after the interview, if so desired) to keep in touch via e-mail or other means during the course of the study. As far as we could ascertain in the report, only in the delayed delivery of reports was there possibly more contact between some survivors and interviewers [10]. Longer and more frequent contact would probably have yielded more information because trust can then grow. This is an important reason why Argos received so much information. The consequence of the method followed is that the information obtained from survivors is limited and first-hand information that should have been the core of this report has been made into an afterthought.

6. Testimonies of victims who did get heard are incomplete, many gruesome details are missing and there is nothing in the report of any appropriate horror or outrage or sense of urgency about this injustice in our country. The survivors interviewed are thus rightly very disappointed with the committee's work, as can be read in the KTGG Knowledge Centre's comments on the report[11]. Moreover, they do not recognise themselves in the reports made of their interviews. In fact, survivors are thus not taken seriously. Besides and again: the core is made an afterthought.

7. The report focuses heavily on insights from a variety of scholars who, to varying degrees, question the credibility of victims' testimonies. The committee itself adopts this. Thus, it is again suggested that it is quite possible that survivors are making up their stories. 'Substantiation' is based on research conducted with healthy subjects. Telling is the conclusion in the summary of subreport 1, victims have their say: 'Based on these interviews, it can be concluded that children in the Netherlands are exposed to severe sexual violence in a context of human trafficking. This involves manipulations, threats, and abuse. Some victims will be so vulnerable that they may be susceptible to suggestion. Seeking explanations for problems is a human trait." The last two woolly sentences subtly undermine the initially apparently clear conclusion. This style of writing, which subtly undermines the credibility of survivors, is found throughout the report.

8. It also reiterates the oft-repeated suggestion that therapists talk their clients into a history of abuse by using suggestive techniques. While we too know of occasional examples of this, the premise that it happens frequently in therapy land is completely unsubstantiated (as it has never been scientifically researched) and also very unlikely. Moreover, treating clients with a present and/or past history of organised sadistic abuse is so time-consuming and complex that, in our experience, many therapists are reluctant, consider themselves incompetent and often have to go through their own denial and resistance before they start to support and treat clients who talk about this in bits and pieces. Hence, survivors of organised sadistic abuse within the mental health system usually have to search endlessly for a treatment place. Therefore, the strength of the claim that therapists widely inflict a past of organised sadistic abuse on their clients lies not in a scientific foundation but in its frequent repetition by prominent people.

9. In subreport 3 'In conversation with therapists about organised sadistic abuse', it is mentioned that no supporting evidence was seen by therapists. A note in sub-report 5, p. 17 mentions that one therapist did see it as revealed in an interview with her (Aline Terpstra). The committee is aware why this therapist, among others, did not participate in this investigation. Again, the committee leaves unmentioned that therapists as well as survivors who may have supporting evidence were not heard. A solid, scientific report would have mentioned this.

10. In sub-report 6, the committee states that there is controversy over the existence of DIS. This is factually incorrect. There is no controversy about it among practitioners, it is a generally accepted diagnosis according to the internationally recognised manual of psychiatrists and psychologists the DSM 5, see the standard of care for dissociative identity disorder, which appeared in 2021. Invariably, the scientists who keep confusing the issue come from the 'False Memory Movement' in America and on Dutch soil from the LEBZ. Under pressure, especially from staff of police body LEBZ, the so-called socio-cognitive model was added to the standard of care, see Argos publication, police expertise group intervened in care standard for dissociative disorders. This socio-cognitive model indicates in fine words, that DIS is made up by survivors or talked up by therapists. Both the FMM and the LEBZ seem to behave activistically to protect perpetrators they believe would be falsely accused. They constantly develop new scientific theories that undermine the credibility of survivors' testimonies and hinder the progress of proper scientific research into the reality of DIS.

11. The LEBZ is being indemnified 'en passant' without being asked by the committee or having the authority to do so. The Hendriks committee describes endorsing the reasoning and decisions of the LEBZ. This was not the remit of this committee and, moreover, another (unfortunately also not independent) investigation into the LEBZ is ongoing. Who gives the Hendriks committee staff the authority to make expert judgements on the LEBZ's modus operandi? Moreover, the only 'case' that has been assessed by the LEBZ and that we as citizens can think about is that of the girl Lisa - because Argos made programmes about it. This case is barely mentioned in the report, very briefly in sub-report 14, p. 15; all the supporting evidence there was in this case is not named let alone examined. Foundation Abused! indicates that it explicitly asked the Commission to look thoroughly at the Lisa case. The report of Foundation Abused! (p. 19) writes: 'The chairman told us that that case was too old; later, in his email of 7 December, he amended that to mean that he felt that that case would lead to too much polarisation, which distracts from what the Commission's findings and conclusions are. That's really quite crazy.' If the commission does not know or does not wish to give critical consideration to the way the LEBZ handled the Lisa case, how much confidence should we have in its assessment of other cases, which we as citizens have no insight into?
12. Based on experiments on conditioning in psychology in healthy subjects, the committee suggests that 'programming' of children through conditioning by extreme torture - resulting in total amnesia between person parts - would not be possible. This while the committee chose, according to their questionnaire, not to question victims extensively about this, which, on the contrary, could have yielded a lot of new information. The added value of the committee lay in bringing new information to the surface based on first-hand testimony. Clinicians in many parts of the Western world observe that survivors' personalities react automatically to all kinds of coded messages.[12] This cannot be denied by performing theoretical reflections on research on conditioning on healthy, normal, adult subjects. It is shocking how the experiential knowledge on 'programming' accumulated over decades by renowned practitioners such as Ellen Lacter and Alison Miller is dismissed in three sentences (committee summary part report 9, p. 6). This is a clear example of the arbitrariness with which the committee allows some practitioners and scholars to speak at length, and virtually ignores others.
13. Moreover, the committee extended the conclusions of research on adults one-to-one to adults who have been extremely tortured from a very young age. This is scientifically inadmissible. It has been frequently shown that the brain of children with early childhood trauma develops differently from the brain of children who grow up safely[13]. Even for a 'layman', it is easy to imagine that a child living in constant extreme fear will deal with scary situations differently in adulthood than someone raised in safety. Strangely, the committee does mention that no research has been done into how conditioning by extreme means (coercion, threat, abuse) works at an early age in children in dependency relationships[14]. It should draw the perfectly logical conclusion from this that it cannot say anything meaningful about the (im)possibility of programming in systematic torture from an early age. However, the committee's conclusion is the opposite. It firmly asserts that programming, and memory loss between person parts as a result, is not possible. Indeed, the partial report's conclusion is as follows: 'In this way[15] the narrative of having no control over one's own behaviour is collectively constructed. To escape the influence of the network, it is important that victims learn to recognise that they do have their own will and control over their own behaviour.' In other words: Victims and perpetrators jointly fabricate that a victim has no control over his/her behaviour. So the Hendriks Commission is certain that there cannot be dissociative identity disorder in which there are real 'holes' in memory, and personality parts that do not know about each other. The international manual of psychiatrists and psychologists, the DSM 5, in which this diagnosis has long had a place, thinks otherwise.
14. Nor does the committee take into account the logical possibility that a well-organised perpetrator network may have developed psychological knowledge about the effect of torture on very young children that 'mainstream' psychology does not have. The committee does mention this possibility when talking about MKUltra, but immediately discards it again. It writes of MKUltra (committee summary partial report 9, p. 7): "the aim of these projects was to develop interrogation and manipulation techniques, including in the form of a 'truth serum', induce amnesia, cause changes in personality and consciousness and make someone perform involuntary and unconscious tasks, including even murder.[16] These projects included the use of drugs such as LSD and mescaline, isolation, sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation, hypnosis and electroshock. That these kinds of experiments took place is certain, but their results are only known to a limited extent because many documents have been destroyed. The existence of such experiments does not prove that the intended methods of control and manipulation are actually possible.' MKUltra was a huge experiment programme on humans with as many as 149 sub-sites that lasted at least 20 years. There were - see this broadcast of Argos or the summary of it (scroll to bottom of page) - a number of secret locations, where the most gruesome experiments that could even lead to death were carried out. In addition, all kinds of universities, prisons, doctors and psychiatrists collaborated in conducting experiments on unsuspecting patients. The head of MKUltra, Sidney Gottlieb, eventually ordered the destruction of all records. For a committee that does not engage in truth-telling, the conclusion 'the existence of these types of experiments does not demonstrate that the intended methods of control and manipulation are actually possible' is quite stark. The opposite cannot be concluded at all. Official sources mention very little about MKUltra because most of the documents were deliberately destroyed. But the fact is that the explicit purpose of these experiments was to destroy the human personality and (re)shape a person so that, against their own moral beliefs, they could commit crimes that they would then completely forget. How can this committee know that that goal has not been achieved, and how can the committee know whether these experiments - which have required huge investments - have actually been stopped? With all these open questions surrounding such a large criminal US government-initiated experimental programme as MK-Ultra, it shows bias and arrogance to deny the existence of programming in victims of organised sadistic abuse on the basis of psychological experiments of mainstream psychology in healthy subjects. All the more so since highly experienced practitioners in many places in the Western world observe programmed reactions in their clients and have written extensively about it.

14. There is overwhelming evidence that information was leaked from high places in the Rolodex case, when 4 high-ranking people were suspected of child abuse. While this is named by the committee, it is not recognised, let alone identified as supporting evidence that survivors who speak of high-level involvement in organised sadistic abuse could be telling the truth.  At partial report 14 (p. 13, 14) the committee writes: 'The Rolodex investigation was done in the late 1990s into the involvement of high-ranking (justice) officials in (an organised form) of abuse of minors at sex parties. (...) It involved the presence of four senior members of the judiciary at sex parties with underage boys. House searches would have yielded no evidence. Information had been leaked, which made investigations difficult, according to the initiator and chief prosecutor at the time.(...) The original Rolodex investigation did not lead to prosecutions. During the hearing, investigators on that investigation said they had no insight into the reason for this; they themselves believed that there were indications.' The initiator and chief public prosecutor Hans Vrakking, in the committee's quoted NOS article, that he was called during the investigation by Justice's top official at the time, Harry Borghouts,' "What are you doing?" Borghouts is said to have asked Vrakking. According to Vrakking, he was upset that Demmink was being investigated by the police. "To this day, I don't understand how Borghouts came to call me when it concerned secret intelligence," says Vrakking'. Vrakking went on to note that leaks had caused the investigation to stall. 'Investigators on that investigation indicated during the hearing that they had no insight into the reason for this; they themselves believed there were clues'[17], the Hendriks committee notes. These facts should be enough to convince this committee that there are very legitimate suspicions that high-ranking officials at least in this case abused their position to trample on the right of abused children.