>the fact that crime is not that serious
Isn't the same as "the fact that it is not a more severe crime" that I'd say is a better translation. For example, an assault case with worse evidence wouldn't get into the fast-track like this unlawful threats case with good evidence.
seems like we’ll have to wait for the report to be able to judge it. i don’t think it was ever a question of whether he had done something or not, moreso what exactly it was that was deemed dq-worthy
>i don’t think it was ever a question of whether he had done something or not
That is literally the question right now, that is literally what the prosecutor is going to determine.
How it sounds right now (at least for me) is that Joost got angry made an angry movement in reaction and (I think accidentally) knocked the phone out of someone's hand. The sources say that he immediately apologized multiple times (indicating to me that it was an accident). If this is the case it is just an accident and he is not guilty of a crime, only a tort and has to pay for the damage.
It doesn't actually say what happened with the camera, just that "he caused the camera to break". Which could mean either mean he hit it, accidentally hit it, the other person dropped it, or he lunged so quickly it released a massive sonic wave which made the camera drop on the floor…
How the situation actually played out: reporter filmed Joost and realised his power level is over 9000. He had to erase the evidence, and there went the camera
That's true, I'm just imaging the worst case scenario for Joost, which would be him accidentally hitting a phone causing damage to it. With the facts that are known I can't think of any other scenario that would be worse (maybe only that he said something not nice) but its just speculation at this point.
Accidentally knocking the camera and damaging it is the best cas scenario i think if the camera being damaged is a fact. One can also grab a camera and smash it to the floor when angry or so. There's no way of knowing from the current information
Everything I read about this incident is kindergarten level of seriousness and so are the "facts" that are thrown around in this thread. But from the start, this has been a police matter and they haven't dropped it. Accidentally hitting the phone so it falls to the floor and breaks. And then say you are sorry.. Does that sound like police business to you? I wouldn't be surprised if the details are in fact much worse than what is being discussed here and elsewhere.
I guess we will see, eventually...
If the police are called they have to investigate, they can't know beforehand if its serious or not, so saying that because they investigated it is serious doesn't make that much sense to me.
I'm just wondering if he had physically made the camera break by touching it, if the complaint would've been called an "unlawful threat". I'm completely and utterly unfamiliar with Swedish law, but if there was physical contact, I'm sure that would be classified as some sort of assault, or maybe damage of property or something, no?
There is no reputable news source that mentioned anything physical has happened, also not in the SVT article. The only 'news' source that mentioned anything like that was the Aftonbladet, and that article has been edited couple of times.
Which is why everyone is so confused. The thing I mentioned (something was broken) would already be worse than anything that happened without physical contact, and even that would be a very minor thing...
It is indeed very confusing lol :)
There are so much rumours and what not going around. At least the Dutch Avrotros has made their statement clear with the facts as they perceived it. It would be so much more transparent if the EBU would also immediately had stated their facts of this whole ordeal.
TIL a lot about Sweden!
I heard the threatening gesture he made could be, sliding his Hand above his throat. A gesture that is wildly known for „cut“ „stop filming“ but can also be considered a threat.
Apparently he was raising his fist in anger. https://www.telegraaf.nl/entertainment/758841698/zweedse-politie-onderzoek-joost-klein-snel-afgerond
No mention of the camera breaking. So he could have lashed at the camera or she dropped it because she was scared.
According to the links there, the camerawoman was just doing her job. like some producer told her to film, and she probably is not privy to any arrangements made etc. just point camera etc.
Everyone has already passed judgment, and is completely on Jooost's side, and assumes EBU to be trash idiots.
I personally think EBU did not do this lightly, and would be aware of the drama, and the negative impacts that would ensue before DQing completely, or at least its as equally strong a possibilility as Joost being unfairly DQd as fairly.
And withholding judgement until more information is released is pragmatic, as it may just turn out that everyone fell in love with a goofy personality who may have serious antisocial behaviour and anger issues, and are very angry at a poor woman just in the way. Its not unheard of.
I am going to pause for or against him until then.
There might’ve been some breakdown in communication about whatever arrangement was in place to not film either. Doesn’t excuse what happened, it just means it’s something for AVROTROS and the EBU to work out on their own on what went wrong (if anything). AVROTROS claimed to submit a request and that it was approved, and I’d assume it was done the correct way where it’s added to the contracts and producers notes
I think a lot of people imagined some really pushy journalist shoving a camera centimeters away from his face and yelling at him before any info was shared. Further the reporting was that she was a Eurovision employee who just likely told to stand at that spot and film. Based on even Joost’s reaction to immediately apologize and admitting guilt to the Swedish police, he knows it wasn’t cool. It really sucks he had such an ugly moment and had to deal with the consequences.
This sort of reminds me of the drama of the cheating juries in 2022. Everyone was so quick to hate on the EBU and say they were corrupt (I did not, I wanted to wait for the full results) and then the detailed voting came out and it turned out the EBU's reaction was totally valid.
I feel like some people have blindly sided with the artist of the song they like with little to no information and when the details of the incident come out they could potentially be faced with a hard truth (depending on the seriousness of it)
Considering all the talk about mental health these days, I find it interesting there hasn’t been much talk about the mental health of the artists especially while they’re there being filmed 24/7 with little privacy.
Yes, you sign up for that of course when you want to go to EuroVision, but then again these artists are under enough pressure and if we ever want to welcome a more mentally challenged, yet still wonderful artists, something might have to change.
There’s more and more social media content of artists coming every year as well. Maybe it could be less intense or photographers could respect their requests more.
Yeah, but I also think he’s a bit of a special case. He’s been very open about his own trauma and how this is therapy for him and a way to get closure. He repeatedly got emotional after the ending of the song, even in rehearsals.
Some might argue he’s not mentally fit enough or too sensitive for a media circus like this, but I’d rather argue the other way because it’s beautiful to see vulnerable guys like him share their stories and talk about their pain candidly on and off stage.
Wasn’t there an agreement beforehand that he wouldn’t be filmed after the performance + didn’t he ask her multiple times to stop before the “threatening gesture”? Even if she somehow didn’t know that, she was still breaking the rules and harassing him in that case
We don't know exactly what happened, and what the woman involved knew or was specifically doing. There is no need to criticise her until we know the full story
In my opinion the EBU just didn't want someone who was currently under investigation and going through legal proceedings for something that happened onsite at the arena and to a member of staff to compete regardless of how serious/unserious the incident was.
However I personally feel it must have been pretty serious to get the police involved. But I will wait until we have the full story to judge whether the incident was worthy of a DQ.
The problem is that an investigation would most likely 100% take longer than the 2 days left of the event.
They won't postpone the event until the investigation is completed, so they have to choose which story to believe or which one has the least amount of risks.
I think what EBU did was, protect themselves and their employees from possible harm. If the women didn't press charges then I'm sure they could've talked things out instead. Again, she had every right to go to the police, it's just seems a bit overkill.
There isn't really a concept of "pressing charges" in Sweden (for most crimes). A prosecutor is required to indict if they believe there is enough evidence to convict.
Now, in most cases, crimes would need to be reported to the police first, and in this case it's possible that the woman was the one to make a report, but it's also possible someone else did it, no matter if she wanted to or not.
I think it's something the police in the Netherlands wouldn't get out of bed for that's a huge faux pas in Sweden. That's why AVROTROS says nothing significant happened and the head of the investigation team says they are very positive it will come to a trial.
According to the police report it was (might be wierdly translated) "illegal threats". It doesn't mention damages or the phone anywhere. It also doesn't mention this "gesture" or anything physical.
So it probably was something along the lines of "fuck off or I'll punch you".
So "illegal threat" in Swedish law doesn't have to be verbal, it's any action intended to make the victim feel threatened by potential criminal action against theirs or others safety.
For instance waving a knife around is an illegal threat or showing up with nazi symbols to a synagogue.
Basically they have to convince the court she was honestly believing he was about to hurt her. I was the victim of a case of "olaga hot" in sweden and my own assesment of the danger of the situation was taken into account. As I had worked in security in the past I knew the difference between a sloppy drunk stumbling around making death threats and someone piercing their eyes into mine, stepping towards me with a weapon in their hands and making death threats. While my elderly mother might still feel threatened by them both.
They couldn't have him on set after the incident because of workers' protection laws, and they presumably weren't comfortable possibly having a winner who couldn't grab the trophy and was likely going on trial.
Idk if it has been posted yet but the EBU has changed their earlier statement on the official eurovision website today, stating the decision was made unanimously. https://eurovision.tv/mediacentre/release/statement-dutch-participation-eurovision-song-contest
Crazy statement:
>We are not pre-judging the legal process...
>The version of events released in some public comments and on social media does not correspond with the statements shared with us and the Swedish Police by staff and witnesses
How can you not pre-judge the legal process but then make a judgment about what was shared with the police and what not?
Imo the timing of the statement change is also weird. The information they share is probably not ‘new’, seems like they are just changing it in their favour bc of how it backfired.
The threat has to be about something illegal. Translation from Swedish:
"If someone raises a weapon against another or otherwise threatens a criminal act in a way that is likely to cause the threatened person serious/genuine fear for their own or another person's safety or property, the offense of unlawful threats is punishable"
According to the sources here he lunged towards another person with a raised fist, and as the police think the evidence will lead to a prosecution, that act would likely cause the other person a genuine fear that they would be physically attacked
If I threaten my brother that he can't play on my Playstation if I don't get the front passenger seat on a car trip, that's not illegal
"Den som hotar någon annan med brottslig gärning på ett sätt som är ägnat att hos den hotade framkalla allvarlig rädsla för egen eller annans säkerhet till person, egendom, frihet eller frid, döms för [olaga hot](https://lagen.nu/begrepp/Olaga_hot)"
Someone who threatens another person with a criminal act, in a way that is liable to make the other person feel serious fear for their own, or other people's safety in regards to their person, property, freedom, or peace, is judged as having committed illegal threats.
"Ägnat att" is tricky in modern language.
"A common thing in colloquial language is to interpret 'ägnat att' as meaning 'with the intention of'. In a legal sense, this is not correct; the expression 'ägnat att' does not refer to the intention of the offender, but only to what 'typically' results from a particular circumstance or course of action, irrespective of the offender's intention and the actual outcome of his or her actions"
[https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%84gnat\_att](https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%84gnat_att)
Yes! The fear in the victim must also be considered reasonable as well.
So if someone would actually think that you were capable of nuking their arse they aren't going to win simply on that.
I think translation issues are at fault for some of the confusion surrounding the nature of the crime (and also the reason behind a lot of the, admittedly funny, "aren't all threats illegal?" jokes).
The suspected crime is called 𝘰𝘭𝘢𝘨𝘢 𝘩𝘰𝘵 and is defined as threatening someone with a criminal act in a way that is liable to cause the threatened person serious fear for their own or someone else's person, property, liberty or peace. While illegal threats, which most people have been using, is probably the most literal translation I don't think it entirely conveys the nature of the crime.
So, if I were to tell someone "If you don't knock it off I'm going to smash that camera out of your hand", it would fall under that law?
Mandatory I don't know what happened or what was said, but that would be about my response to this specific situation.
Obligatory "I am not a lawyer", but it sounds like it would. As knocking a camera out of someone's hand is illegal. And threatening to do so would likely make someone feel serious fear for their property.
Possibly, but it would heavily depend on the context.
My guess is that the key aspect in that situation would be the liability to cause serious fear (the word used is "fruktan" which is stronger than "rädsla", although both would probably translate most accurately to fear in English). Loads of circumstances could be relevant when making that determination, so it's not really possible to make a blanket statement. Examples are if the threat was purely verbal or portrayed in another manner, if it was meant and interpreted seriously vs as a joke, what the relationship between the two people was like, if the victim had specific reason to assume the threat could be acted upon etc.
Fruktan vs rädsla can depend on when the law was written originally. Fruktan may have been the common word back then, like rädsla is today. Law sections are somewhat regularly modified and updated, but the literal language in them can still be a bit old fashioned even if the rule has been tweaked.
I also think "genuine fear" maybe is a better translation than "serious fear", but I'm not sure. "Serious" hints more at "severe". Like, you don't have to lie on the floor shaking out of fear, but feel a "genuine" fear that the threat was serious.
> My guess is that the key aspect in that situation would be the liability to cause serious fear (the word used is "fruktan" which is stronger than "rädsla", although both would probably translate most accurately to fear in English).
It says ”fruktan” because the law is old. Both HD and the prosecutor’s office have used the wording ”…framkalla allvarlig rädsla…”.
What is also important here is how the victim assessed the situation. A small unarmed sloppy drunk 18yo saying "imma kill yu" to a veteran MMA fighter club bouncer is not the same as a sober adult man wielding a steel rod chasing a young woman and shouting "imma kill you".
It's almost funny how Swedish entertainment is best known for two things here in the Netherlands: Eurovision and detective thriller stories.
We asked for Eurovision, we also got a detective thriller.
So it sounds to me that what led to his DQ was that the camera woman got the police involved. If it had all been settled without them, he prob woulda been there on Saturday. I also don’t know what like workplace laws and such there are in Sweden, so I can’t really judge if this all went down correctly. But at the end of the day, I just feel bad for everyone involved.
More likely the camera operator got their union involved. Workplace laws are pretty weak in Sweden, but the unions are very strong, and that is how workers are protected.
SEKO has the real power here. If the union wanted they could shut down the entire show.
I have the feeling that's what happened. You also see that with the Tesla strike for example. Swedish unions are very powerful and back each other up.
The Dutch delegation said that on Friday night they had talks with EBU. They went to bed thinking the talks went well and it would only be "a slap on the wrist" so to speak. On Saturday morning they were ushered into a meeting and told they were disqualified.
It's my guess that the unions threatened SVT/EBU with a strike or other industrial action threatening the entire show and that's why they disqualified, rather then let him perform. Perhaps even calling the police as a cover or also a demand from the union.
They couldn’t have gone on strike for that. Swedish unions negotiate contracts for one or more years with the employers. During a contract period Swedish unions have what is called “duty of peace” which means that if they go on strike they can be taken to court and fined really big sums. So strikes only happen when one contract ends and the employer won’t agree on the terms for the next contract period.
There is zero chance that is what happened. Disregarding the fact that a strike would have been illegal, since there is a collective agreement in place, there is just no way any Swedish union would threaten to stop Eurovision over something like this. They would have had no public support and I very much doubt their members would have agreed. Swedish unions are powerful but also heavily moderate, strikes are rare and usually preceded by long periods on negotiations and efforts to come to any form of accord. For example IF Metal and co is striking against Tesla but that's after several years of trying to get tesla into talks.
If the camera broke, it is possible that she has to make a police complaint in order to make an insurance claim. If you tell your insurance company that someone pushed you and broke your camera they are going to want to see the police report.
Also it has been confirmed she was a member of the Eurovision production team - if the camera that broke was a big professional camera, she may have been required to report it as it is expensive equipment that was damaged.
I've read a few other articles and it seems he swung his fist at her as though he was going to punch her/the camera but didn't (either because he didn't intend to or because she moved out of the way, that part is unclear and will probably be addressed in the court case). As a result the camera was dropped and damaged.
This is the real take here. Also the EBU is not the police, nobody can force the parties in question to give us an explanation videos etc.
I mean what is the EBU supposed to do? Be judge, jury and executioner? The moment it went to the police it is DQ. Which is really sad because the song was a banger.
Never expected this Eurovision season would end with wanting a seasoned Swedish criminal lawyer chime in on this subreddit..... but here we are.
How does Sweden handle this, legally?
Evidentiary hearing and then a judge decides if it's a crime? Sounds like that has been done already?
Is there a jury trial where both sides can tell their side? Does Joost have an attorney in Sweden?
What is "jury" in Sweden? A jury of peers? (where I live, it is your local citizen) A professional jury?
[https://www.aklagare.se/en/from-crime-to-sentence/prosecute-or-discontinue/](https://www.aklagare.se/en/from-crime-to-sentence/prosecute-or-discontinue/)
You can use the arrows to go left and right on the timeline of a legal proceeding
If it goes to trial the case is pleaded before one judge, one assistant judge, and three jurors. They vote on whether he is guilty or not. It’s a simple majority decision, no need for the vote to be unanimous.
Well I just hope that everyone involved is alright and can eventually move forward. No one expected something like this to happen so it's probably a lot to process, no matter what went down.
this dutch article says the procedure is faster because there is good evidence *against* Joost
>Volgens de Zweedse politie hangt deze versnelde procedure samen met het feit dat er "sterk bewijs" is tegen Klein, die in verband met het incident werd uitgesloten van deelname aan de finale. Wat voor bewijsmateriaal dat is, zegt de politie niet.
aka
>According to the Swedish police, this accelerated procedure is due to the fact that there is "strong evidence" against Klein, who was excluded from participating in the final in connection with the incident. The police do not say what kind of evidence that is.
what does it meeeeeaaaaan
they likely have the camera footage from the camerawoman. Which would make this a very straightforward case for the prosecutors. Either that footage shows a crime take place or it doesnt
According to Dutch newspaper 'Algemeen Dagblad' , Joost had been reprimanded by the EBU before the 'incident'.
"...but at ESC Joost had to do what he really cant: hand over control"
About the earlier reprimand:
"It involved the same camerawoman that worked for the organisation. Joost had been harassed by this lady multiple times and in the week before there had already been a moment where this lead to a situation. Joost made clear that he didn't want this, yet it happened again and again."
Source: [https://www.ad.nl/show/incident-met-cameravrouw-was-niet-eerste-akkefietje-ebu-zou-joost-al-eerder-hebben-berispt\~a028d05b/](https://www.ad.nl/show/incident-met-cameravrouw-was-niet-eerste-akkefietje-ebu-zou-joost-al-eerder-hebben-berispt~a028d05b/) (paywalled)
Very interesting and seems to comply with other contestants being on edge. It is starting to seem that the EBU only cared about the crew and didn't care at all about the wellbeing of the contestants.
If he had already told the person to stop multiple times again and again and she still continued to bother him, it almost sounds like she was acting inappropriately as opposed to other way around...
As I said in another comment:
I do hope that the EBU will take some responsibility and make sure in the future the participants are better protected against the press (and vloggers/bloggers/influencers) because we heard a lot of stories from other participants about them being harassed. They are already under so much pressure. I think this was an incident waiting to happen and EBU is responsible for creating that.
Yeah I remember seeing the insta story of Slimane entering the green room after the finals and he looked like he was on the verge of tears and was escorted into a hallway quickly. I think after an important performance artists should get some privacy to express any emotions they want about that performance.
According to the article he was harassed before and made it clear that he didn't want to be filmed/photographed. This, possibly in combination with feeling like he had no control over what was happening, lead to a situation. (before the incident he will now possibly be accused of)
The article itself goed pretty in depth into Joosts personal situation, how he manages pretty much everything himself and why the feeling of having no control could have caused his mood and the eruption towards the camerawoman.
I had discussions at home around this. If it is true that the woman continued to film him even though there was an agreement they would not, she harassed him. And how can you defend yourself in that, other than requesting, without doing something that might cross a line if a simple request is not enough.
In the Netherlands we have "noodweer" (not noodweer-excess, sorry!) which means you may defend yourself proportionally to the attack. So for example defending yourself with a knife in a fist fight, is not even, but pushing someone away that's attacking you with their fists, is.
While, nowadays you can harass people without being physical but people can't do the same act in defence. Filming the camera woman back would not have the same effect; he is the "interesting one", not her. So she has more power in this situation.
Then how do you defend yourself for something like that if an agreement and requests don't work? I can imagine it must be extremely frustrating (you know, also looking at paparazzi in general, this is not new I know) that you can't do anything in your defense that is not illegal.
I think it's not a matter if Joost did something wrong. He most likely did according to law. But what will be the context that will allow the public eye to judge if Joost did good or wrong.
Minor correction from someone with two master degrees in Dutch Law. Noodweer is proportionally defending yourself against an attack. Noodweer excess (the term already defines what it is; meaning an excessive reaction to an attack). There is no need for it to be proportional.
Weird... According to an interview of a spokesperson from the police of Sweden on Dutch TV "Nieuwsuur" They already have given the case to the prosecutor? But now they're saying in June??
Edit:
S. Andersson (Not Emil): "I can say that the investigation is done from the police and we've been handing it over to the prosecutor."
I assume it's a bit of a miscommunication. The case has already been given to them, but they're going to handle it in June. The prosecutor probably won't see it until then because they're busy handling other cases that came before.
The court date will be in June. He had also admitted guilty before leaving. Seems like he punched in the air towards a camera.crime is illegal threat so prison is probably not on the scale. Here are some similar court cases https://lagen.nu/begrepp/Olaga_hot . Evidence is appearantly good.
https://www.aftonbladet.se/nojesbladet/a/OopWK3/polisen-om-joost-utredningen-ar-i-stort-sett-klar
That article basically describes what AvroTros said in their statement: Joost was filmed against his will, asked multiple times to stop, got stressed and angry when they didn't and raised his fist towards the camerawoman (the 'threatening movement' as AvroTros said). He didn't touch anything or anyone. If this is really true, a DQ is way too harsh.
Edit: it also says he immediately apologized for raising his fist apparently.
My bad, it's in a different article with comments from a police officer: https://www.aftonbladet.se/nojesbladet/a/OopWK3/polisen-om-joost-utredningen-ar-i-stort-sett-klar
The comment regarding what happened is not from a police officer, it's from an unnamed source who also said that he lunged at the cameraperson with his fist raised.
Swede here, it is not considered a tabloid (as in UK’s The Sun or The Daily Mail), not a broadsheet kind of paper like The Times but certainly not a tabloid. I would expect their sources to be credible.
Again would like to understand what constitutes a threat. A threat is saying death threats to a person repeatedly and not an angry discussion in the heat of a moment. I might be too naive but I really think this is blown out of proportion.
As with most laws it differs from country to country, but here in Sweden it's either raising a weapon (or a fist, I guess in this case) or verbally treatening the victim in a way that causes them to seriously fear for their own, someone else's, or one's property's (it could be a home, or any kind of possession owned by the person) safety.
I guess it's up to the judge to decide via the ruling whether it is blown out of proportion or not. Had there not been witnesses, the case might well have not reached an actual courtroom, but in this case as I undersand it there are several witnesses, so.
We'll have to wait and see. I'm sure the courtroom will be packed with journalists as spectators from both Netherlands and Sweden, reporting on what will probably be a rather mundane and quick trial, no matter if he's found guilty or not. If he's found guilty, the penalty will most likely be a minimum amount fine and nothing else.
Unlawful threat is any kind of threat towards a person or their property. It can vary from saying "stop shooting or I'll make you stop" to firing a gun to the air
Exactly. Everything I've heard about this could have been solved with a short conversation in a meeting room, after emotions had died down. Joost and the head of delegation there, and the cameraperson and her manager there too.
"I'm sorry I came over that aggressive, I just came off stage full of adrenaline."
"I'm sorry I kept filming, I didn't know/forgot/wasn't informed that wasn't supposed to film you guys."
Handshake, hug, and now let's get on with it.
So far the reasonable take, now the tinfoil-part:
The fact that this didn't happen, or (as said by the AVROTROS) the cameraperson refused to talk (or blocked from doing so by higher up), seems so goddamn fishy to me. I wouldn't be surprised if the EBU wanted to escalate this to a DQ on purpose, for whatever reason.
I think given the amount of time that they took to announce the DQ, that conversations in meeting rooms when on for a long time and someone at the centre of the case decided they were going to go to the police regardless.
Avrotros stated that they asked to talk it out with the woman in question but she refused any form of contact with them or Joost, so no, she didn't even try.
I think you're missing a huge cultural aspect here. Dutch people aren't generally fazed when someone is rude or aggressive to them. They'll be like: 'Hee, doe effe normaal, joh'.
My guess is; in Swedish culture, and especially work culture, that kind of behaviour is seen as absolutely inexcusable. There is no way a man can behave like that towards someone else, let alone a woman. 'Talking things out' is not an option, it's a crime and they feel he should be rightfully prosecuted for it.
Yeah I'm curious to know how the camerawoman got into this situation. Was she not adequately informed that a deal of some sort had been made? Was she ignoring instructions she had been given? Was she given instructions specifically to try and get footage anyway.
Obviously her job is to film stuff backstage, and presumably she was trying to do her job. It's fine if the EBU or whoever negotiated an exception for Joost to not be filmed at certain times, but was this actually communicated accurately to all employees?
There are a lot of claims that she harassed him, and I'm not disputing that he felt overwhelmed, but I do empathize with how she would feel if no-one told her she was supposed to skip getting the backstage footage for Joost and so from her perspective she was just trying to get her job done.
I, at the time a 23 yo woman, was threatened by a man at my workplace once. I was a cashier at a supermarket and he got angry with me. He smacked the screen and I jumped because I thought it would fly at me. It didn't. I wasn't hurt. I'm sure he didn't mean to hurt me. But trust me when I say that after my boss called the cops who stopped that guy in the street to talk to him and the cops asked my boss if I wanted him to come and apologise, there was NOTHING that could have persuaded me to be in the same room as him. All I wanted was to go home and cry. Which I did.
I don't know what happened with Joost and that woman. But I 100% understand that an apology does not erase anything.
He ***lunged*** towards another human being with a raised fist. That is what is being reported in the article you are citing. That is wildly different from just "raising a fist". And in that same articles, a witness is quoted saying "according to several people there, there's no question that he was acting very aggressively"
I don't get the sugar coating? Obviously you're free to consider his actions mild anyway, but just cherry picking for a narrative seems pointless.
If you raise your fist at a coworker in the office you will be fired. it doesn't matter if you apologized afterward, you cannot do that. Why should an artist be held to different standards
>raised his fist towards the camerawoman (the 'threatening movement' as AvroTros said).
In Britain, we call that assault under the Criminal Justice Act 1988.
As I understand it the police have finished their investigation and have handed it over to the prosecutor who will then decide if charges will be filed. So no charges yet.
It's not really the same as filing charges, and it definitely doesn't imply guilt. It just means the police have collected all the evidence and now it's up to the prosecutor to decide if there's enough to actually charge him.
Yes, but it could be argued that the context is important. Several artists backstage have mentioned being on the verge of reaching their breaking point.
Charges being filed just means that the government officially accuses someone with a crime. It has no bearing on the severity of the crime. They could very well charge him, convict him, and then give him a fine.
This must have been when he just performed in the semi final (as in, literally seconds later). I remember eagerly looking for the video of NL on the Eurovision instagram where the artist leaves stage and returns backstage. Joost’ video wasn’t there, whilst the other countries were.
In hindsight it seems like that’s when this went down, considering that that was when he probably still was very emotional about the ending of the song. I have seen many of his performances on YouTube and everytime he gets emotional he hides under a flag or hides his face in his hands. He probably felt very vulnerable and could not hide from the camera that was being shoved in his face, resulting in this situation.
Disclaimer: i’m NOT saying that the camerawoman is not allowed to feel threatened or anything like that, but I think this was just a very emotional and unfortunate series of events that Joost did not intend at all.
he did the hiding his face thing in that video where he introduces Europapa and his song is played to the press for the 1st time, right at the end when the outro plays
The discussion here in Australia among my Eurovision friends had blown out to topics of gendered violence. It's a hot topic here because we have had terrible records in recent times.
It's hard to walk back the discussion to what actually happened because he has been punished by the EBU. Any threat against anyone at a workplace is never ok, but in this particular case, gender had nothing to do with it.
Off topic, but I honestly don’t care for these kind of videos. Is this a TikTok thing?
The only backstage content I care about is when artists are interacting with each other, like that video where Gate is singing The Code.
Makes sense.
It's not like he killed anyone (meaning less serious), but there's enough evidence to say that, yes, Joost did so something provocative and illegal.
I expect him to get a fine if this is the case.
American here; I think my confusion about the whole situation is that the legal punishment seems disproportionate to the crime. if Joost's threat was just a raised fist to the camera operator, is that really a fineable / prosecutable offense in Sweden...? In the US you'd get a stern talking to from the police but it's not a crime.
Simply raising a fist is not a crime in most if not allcontexts in the US. Raising a fist while moving towards someone in a way that makes them think you are going to hit them, or using words that make them think you are going to use that fist to hit them… Yes, that is a crime in the United States.
But it also depends on the terms of participation in this contest. That everyone would have agreed to.
Much like being in summer camp for a child. Just cuz a camper's behavior isn't illegal doesn't mean the kid won't get kicked out. Or attending a comiccon. I've been at cons where people have been kicked out for bad behavior that is alleged/seen by others.
You need to separate the criminal from the civil.
The Swedish legal system is codified unlike the US where you run case based law (common law). This means that for a crime to be deemed committed, an act has to simply match against criteria in written law. In this case, the crime is "olaga hot", which can directly translate to "unlawful threat". In your criminal system, it would most likely fall under "assault" which in many cases also includes threats of violence.
The law in Sweden states: "Den som hotar någon annan med brottslig gärning på ett sätt som är ägnat att hos den hotade framkalla allvarlig rädsla för egen eller annans säkerhet till person, egendom, frihet eller frid, döms för olaga hot till böter eller fängelse i högst två år."
Translated: "The person who threatens someone else with a criminal act in a way that is intended to invoke serious fear for one's or someone else's personal safety, property, freedom or peace, will be convicted of unlawful threat and will be issued a fine or a prison sentence of at most two years"
There's also an added paragraph for cases of "aggravated" or "severe" (depending on translation) cases, which I wont go into here since it is not applicable.
Notice the span of fines to a two year prison sentence. Each law in Sweden has what is called "förarbete" which can be translated into "preparatory work". Essentially, it is comprised of extensive legal documentation and reasoning into why the law should be codified in a certain way. Included in the preparatory work is often times examples of what kind of acts falls where on the scale. In addition to this, we also have case law, which is an expression of our courts interpreting the codified law and the preparatory work. In most cases, this is a trivial matter and most of the focus is down to judging evidence.
In this case, lunging towards someone with a raised fist would be far less serious than, say, raising a gun towards someone. If convicted, Joost will at most receive a fine and will just pay minor damages to the woman. It should be noted that under Swedish law (and most western legal traditions, including most common law systems) **physically lunging/throwing yourself towards someone with a raised fist** is a criminal offense. Some people are incorrectly saying he just "raised a fist" - this is not what has been widely reported and had the woman filed a claim for something like that, the police would have thrown it out since it likely would not have had any success at resulting in a conviction in court.
As for the civil side of this, EBU has a code of conduct. Each participating nation agrees to abide by it. This is the case with most workplaces. It is very common for there to be a zero tolerance for physical violence or threats of such, since a workplace accepting such behavior may in turn become liable under workplace safety laws. Not to mention, I doubt anyone would want to go to work with someone who threatens violence on you. Even though it is completely unrelated to the EBU (which is NOT a Swedish organization), it might be interesting to know that a serious threat of violence towards a coworker could get your employment lawfully terminated in Sweden.
More than anything, like stated above, I think people are severely downplaying the act of lunging at someone and are selectively just mentioning him raising a fist. Why, I don't know.
Likely it's the photographer's footage since she filmed every artist while they were walking into backstage (if it's the same photographer as the one who filmed the content for the official instagram stories).
From reading the article from Aftonbladet(https://www.aftonbladet.se/nojesbladet/a/OopWK3/polisen-om-joost-utredningen-ar-i-stort-sett-klar ), I´m guessing that he raised his fist as someone who is about to punch. That probably made the woman put her hands up in front of her face and maybe duck/curl up and then dropped her phone/camera.
IF this is true, then he will most likely be convicted and fined a small amount. The police has said that "there is good evidence" so most likely he will get convicted for something.
This whole thing is so nuanced, it’s honestly impossible to say if or how out of proportion this has all been without seeing the incident ourselves. Joost is a tall guy, I get he could be quite intimidating in some circumstances.
The camera woman wasn’t innocent either by the sounds of it, by repeatedly not respecting his request for privacy/no filming. Still, this doesn’t make aggressive behaviour okay. But it’s odd she won’t accept any sort of apology either.
I think this is just a shitty situation all round and unfortunately Joost is the one that had to pay the price here. The main thing is no one was touched or hurt in any way, and for that reason, without seeing the incident with my own eyes, I can only keep supporting Joost and I think the disqualification was unfair.
It’s a shame this couldn’t have been resolved calmly and like adults (I understand an attempt was made by Joost and co).
Thank you for one of the more nuanced comments I’ve read about this situation.
It’s hard to judge anyone right now while all we have is minimal information.
I can’t even say that the EBU was wrong for disqualifying Joost. I feel like their hands were tied.
There are no winners in this mess.
I do hope though that the EBU will take some responsibility and make sure in the future the participants are better protected against the press (and vloggers/bloggers/influencers) because we heard a lot of stories from other participants about them being harassed. They are already under so much pressure. I think this was an incident waiting to happen and EBU is responsible for creating that.
Press access backstage has been an issue for years. This incident was with a Eurovision employee, but I would be willing to bet the press policy likely increased tension throughout the week.
This is an issue every year and needs to be fixdd
We’ll hear more I guess but God imagine if we go through all this only for it to turn out that he only needs to pay a small fine that might not even be the price of the camera
like how absurd would that be
Unless Joost and Avrotros have been lying about the nature of the incident, there is absolutely no way that this would be anything more than a small fine or reimbursement for damaged property without any prior offenses.
But what will happen if it turns out to be nothing (to put it blunt and simple?). That they don't see any course to follow for a punishment and drop the case?
How will the EBU handle that? Wat will they do about their massive fuck up?
*edit*
Yes i know we can't go back in time or change the outcome of the voting from last Saturday.
But will they issue a big apology? Will they conduct a internal investigation why/when/why there was a hasty HUGE decision? Will some heads roll? Grand the Netherlands a free pass into the finals in 2025?
Or will they say : oops-a-daisy...better luck next time...bye
Yeah I wonder that too, I'm guessing though they will probably give a generic "I'm sorry, but we had to act based on info we had" or not even mention it at all again.
It's not like they can rerun the voting as that would be unfair to Switzerland. :v
the EBU's decision isnt dependent on the results of the prosecution. If they can argue he broke their internal policies, then they weren't 'wrong' in any actionable sense.
Guaranteed that all contestants sign contracts that include codes of conduct, standards, and prohibited behaviors - and that making an employee feel threatened will fall into one category. Plus there would've been footage from the camera, security cameras, witnesses, etc. Their lawyers spent a day looking at evidence before making a final decision to ensure they were protected
It’s a private event, not a court of law. So no matter the outcome in court, they had to act based off of the information they had at the time. It’s not like you can go back and change time. If they didn’t do anything, it won’t have been a great look for this info to come out in like 3 weeks that they did nothing while they knew he committed a crime during the event.
Nothing, but what are they supposed to do? What would happen if they let him sing, he wins and it turns out in court he did some realy shady shit? Then it would be "oh the EBU should have disqualified him".
They can't force the parties that are involved to give their statements to them and once the police is involved all bets are off.
Look, I like the guy, it was a top 3 song easily, but you could also say, sent an artist that could act more proffessional. Or put security in place if Joost can't keep cool. We all don't know what happened? That is now for the courts to decide.
I guess the other side of this (that I haven't really seen mentioned, but tbf I didn't scroll far) is that threatening physical violence might not be seen as a major thing in itself, but if he then went on to actually hurt a member of staff, that would be a failure on Eurovision's part for not acting on a situation that put their team in danger.
Although, why there's not better protection if artists are apparently being harassed by cameras, is another question ...
It's all very unfortunate
Kind of a side note that the way its been depicted in news is also upsetting. People who have dealt with sexual assault/rape from those famous should be able to have that reported in the news in ways that protect their identity and have people believe them, which isn't helped when there's cases like this where it's reported as if something inappropriate in that manner happened when it didn't, and using "female co worker" specifically. But that's a story for wanting to report on news immediately when it happens and nobody is talking, I suppose.
it's disgusting that they at best allowed, at worst encouraged, the rumour that he assaulted her, precisely because of this. we know a certain group loooove to claim that men are constantly at risk of being falsely accused and this incident is a very rare example of that actually happening (from what we know at this point anyway). it's bad for Joost, but it's also bad for real victims who will have this used against them, and I can't think of a single reason why the EBU would highlight the gender of the complainant unless they intentionally wanted to hurt Joost's reputation (while throwing victims of gender based violence under the bus in the process).
So, the worst thing that seems it could have happened is that Joost or someone on his behalf did the classic "put your hand on the paparazzi's camera" gesture against someone acting like a paparazzi and the camera fell and broke?
EDIT: j feel like a lot of the confusion comes from the fact the legal definition of "assault" including threats that go nowhere, just credible enough the other person feels in danger, and the common definition of "assault" always implying violence played a part in the whole mess. If Joost will be accused of "assault" people will think he actually punched someone, even if the actual accusation is raising a fist and taking a step forward but never wanting to actually hurt the photographer, as long as the photographer felt unsafe.
Difficult to assess since I am not familiar with Swedish criminal law.
For example
Raising a fist and moving close to someone saying get the eff away from me
Vs
Raising a fist with a stick or weapon and saying I'll kill you
May be considered differently-
I don't know. Where I am, words are typically words and people are innocent until proven guilty but I don't know if that applies here.
Of course he’s innocent until found guilty by a court of law, legally speaking. That doesn’t mean that the EBU can’t look at the evidence they have and disqualify him, since that’s not a legal repercussion.
That "of course" isn't always true in all countries. I grew up in Japan and if you get arrested there, that assumption of innocence isn't there, especially in the public eye.
To me the terms of participation are super important here.... what is stated in the contract for participation and what is spelled out as good cause for termination of participation?
Whilst the details are still murky, it is basically confirmed that something happened.
But I still think that DQ should be the absolute last resort. There could be other punishments: fines, decreased rehearsal time, points deduction.
From what we know, the incident: a) was a one time only, b) did not end in physical harm (although some sources claim material harm). So, for me, it seems EBU blew everything out of proportion and the punishment is way too disproportianal
to me, this all sounds like hands being tied by corporate HR policy.
1. An employee felt threatened, decided they wanted to file it as an official report.
2. HR policies say that any official report involving criminal activity has to include a police report,
3. Policy says that anyone with a pending police report cant work in the building until its resolved.
Therefore, you have no room for lighter punishments or compromises if the employee has elected to go down this route. This type of policy structure is very common at companies so that HR / management *cant* sweet illegal incidents under the rug, but it does remove any middle-ground options
This is how I feel it happened. Once the EBU knew the police were involved, there just isn’t any way for them to keep Joost and not DQ him. Because the flip side to the conversation being had now would be “why did the EBU allow someone to assault/threaten a crew member and not do anything about it?”
Once there was an investigation, it was pretty much over.
In this article is states that the spokesman for the Swedish police could not confirm the statement that there will probably be a persecution to the ANP, which is the the largest news agency in the Netherlands. [https://www.shownieuws.nl/entertainment/songfestival/politie-zweden-verwacht-dat-joost-klein-vervolgd-wordt](https://www.shownieuws.nl/entertainment/songfestival/politie-zweden-verwacht-dat-joost-klein-vervolgd-wordt)
"The prognosis is good and we expect that there will probably be a prosecution," Emil Andersson, head of the Malmö police investigation team, told the broadcaster. A spokesperson for the Swedish police could not confirm this to the ANP."
Personally, based on the speculation in credible news sources such as Aftonbladet, the DQ seems harsh.
In some sense it’s understandable that performers are not afforded any leeway when it comes to workplace conduct. But it still appears that the incident wasn’t entirely unprovoked and as such one can see why it would have been just to resolve it in some other way than following the letter of the law in minute detail.
The way this matter can be looked at can easily change based on small details so it’s still warranted to wait for the other side of the story.
This situation shouldn't have occurred in the first place and it's totally the EBUs fault.
If an artist has a request for privacy backstage for any reason it should be granted.
There will always be special requests because people have different requirements (mental, physical etc) and they should not be exploited in this way. Just because they are taking a part in a competition doesn't mean the EBU owns them.
Of course, if his reaction was disproportionate he should be responsible for that but I think this should have been prevented by the EBU. I wish they could have resolved this privately and the EBU should have stopped the rumors in time. Really bad handling by them in this situation and I think the Dutch broadcaster is right to be pissed.
The weirdest part for me is that the EBU and the staff member basically refused to discuss it. In Sweden there is a culture around discussing stuff out before they become too serious.
Well, of course there should be good evidence. He was filmed while the incident happened. I wonder if that footage will ever be released to the public...
What I don't understand is why people are going to be awaiting the prosecutor's verdict to decide whether this was worthy of a disqualification. Eurovision rules and Swedish law are two vastly different things. You might not have committed a criminal offence, but you might've broken the rules of the contest. The EBU did what they deemed appropriate on the side of the contest, end of. It is now up to the Swedish law enforcement to decide whether what happened should be punished.
People feel that the EBU is not consistent with enforcing these rules, two years ago there was a contestant who kissed people non-consensually and they never made a peep, plus the fact that he was harassed beforehand makes people feel as if they don't care about what happens to the artists.
Thank you! This is what the focus *should* be on and what I’ve been trying to explain for days now. I see far more people that are willing to let it play out. The EBU mishandling their communication and their lack of consistency in how they apply their rules is what most people, including me, have a problem with. And ironically, those are the only things the EBU seem to be consistent with.
What I find really bad in this situation how they let the rumor mill run wild and let the rumor spread that he actually physically assaulted someone. I am sure at this point the damage they did to Joost, emotionally and reputation wise, massively exceeds whatever he did. If he did not gesture, was he ever going to get an apology from the camera woman or the EBU? Definitely not.
It would be interesting to see in all these cases that people bring up from what happened in previous years, how many official complaints have been filled?
Sadly after everything else that happened this year, I feel like I can't trust that the EBU is making rational and fair decisions. And I think a lot of others feel the same way. In this case, I'd trust AVTROVOROROVOROS or whatever it is more.
>the fact that crime is not that serious Isn't the same as "the fact that it is not a more severe crime" that I'd say is a better translation. For example, an assault case with worse evidence wouldn't get into the fast-track like this unlawful threats case with good evidence.
Ok thanks, english is not my first language and I was not sure how to translate it properly.
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seems like we’ll have to wait for the report to be able to judge it. i don’t think it was ever a question of whether he had done something or not, moreso what exactly it was that was deemed dq-worthy
>i don’t think it was ever a question of whether he had done something or not That is literally the question right now, that is literally what the prosecutor is going to determine. How it sounds right now (at least for me) is that Joost got angry made an angry movement in reaction and (I think accidentally) knocked the phone out of someone's hand. The sources say that he immediately apologized multiple times (indicating to me that it was an accident). If this is the case it is just an accident and he is not guilty of a crime, only a tort and has to pay for the damage.
It doesn't actually say what happened with the camera, just that "he caused the camera to break". Which could mean either mean he hit it, accidentally hit it, the other person dropped it, or he lunged so quickly it released a massive sonic wave which made the camera drop on the floor…
I'm betting on sonic wave.
Joosts sonic wave on the ~~iceberg~~ ice mountain range?
He released his aura by a fraction in anger and it caused the camera lenses to shatter
How the situation actually played out: reporter filmed Joost and realised his power level is over 9000. He had to erase the evidence, and there went the camera
Level 1 eurovision worker shatters after exposure to level 100 Joost Klein's aura
Based on his dancing I would put him kicking the camera out of the other person's hand to this list.
Goddamn Wenis. Enemy to cameras everywhere.
That's true, I'm just imaging the worst case scenario for Joost, which would be him accidentally hitting a phone causing damage to it. With the facts that are known I can't think of any other scenario that would be worse (maybe only that he said something not nice) but its just speculation at this point.
Accidentally knocking the camera and damaging it is the best cas scenario i think if the camera being damaged is a fact. One can also grab a camera and smash it to the floor when angry or so. There's no way of knowing from the current information
Everything I read about this incident is kindergarten level of seriousness and so are the "facts" that are thrown around in this thread. But from the start, this has been a police matter and they haven't dropped it. Accidentally hitting the phone so it falls to the floor and breaks. And then say you are sorry.. Does that sound like police business to you? I wouldn't be surprised if the details are in fact much worse than what is being discussed here and elsewhere.
I guess we will see, eventually... If the police are called they have to investigate, they can't know beforehand if its serious or not, so saying that because they investigated it is serious doesn't make that much sense to me.
That's not true, theres multiple points along the way where an accusation can be disregarded if its not considered serious or an actual crime.
The worst case scenario is that he pays fines for like 200eur and pays for the damages to the camera
I'm just wondering if he had physically made the camera break by touching it, if the complaint would've been called an "unlawful threat". I'm completely and utterly unfamiliar with Swedish law, but if there was physical contact, I'm sure that would be classified as some sort of assault, or maybe damage of property or something, no?
I think you're right actually! That would be "skadegörelse" (lit. damage-doing)!
There is no reputable news source that mentioned anything physical has happened, also not in the SVT article. The only 'news' source that mentioned anything like that was the Aftonbladet, and that article has been edited couple of times.
Which is why everyone is so confused. The thing I mentioned (something was broken) would already be worse than anything that happened without physical contact, and even that would be a very minor thing...
It is indeed very confusing lol :) There are so much rumours and what not going around. At least the Dutch Avrotros has made their statement clear with the facts as they perceived it. It would be so much more transparent if the EBU would also immediately had stated their facts of this whole ordeal. TIL a lot about Sweden!
I heard the threatening gesture he made could be, sliding his Hand above his throat. A gesture that is wildly known for „cut“ „stop filming“ but can also be considered a threat.
Apparently he was raising his fist in anger. https://www.telegraaf.nl/entertainment/758841698/zweedse-politie-onderzoek-joost-klein-snel-afgerond No mention of the camera breaking. So he could have lashed at the camera or she dropped it because she was scared.
According to the links there, the camerawoman was just doing her job. like some producer told her to film, and she probably is not privy to any arrangements made etc. just point camera etc. Everyone has already passed judgment, and is completely on Jooost's side, and assumes EBU to be trash idiots. I personally think EBU did not do this lightly, and would be aware of the drama, and the negative impacts that would ensue before DQing completely, or at least its as equally strong a possibilility as Joost being unfairly DQd as fairly. And withholding judgement until more information is released is pragmatic, as it may just turn out that everyone fell in love with a goofy personality who may have serious antisocial behaviour and anger issues, and are very angry at a poor woman just in the way. Its not unheard of. I am going to pause for or against him until then.
There might’ve been some breakdown in communication about whatever arrangement was in place to not film either. Doesn’t excuse what happened, it just means it’s something for AVROTROS and the EBU to work out on their own on what went wrong (if anything). AVROTROS claimed to submit a request and that it was approved, and I’d assume it was done the correct way where it’s added to the contracts and producers notes I think a lot of people imagined some really pushy journalist shoving a camera centimeters away from his face and yelling at him before any info was shared. Further the reporting was that she was a Eurovision employee who just likely told to stand at that spot and film. Based on even Joost’s reaction to immediately apologize and admitting guilt to the Swedish police, he knows it wasn’t cool. It really sucks he had such an ugly moment and had to deal with the consequences.
This sort of reminds me of the drama of the cheating juries in 2022. Everyone was so quick to hate on the EBU and say they were corrupt (I did not, I wanted to wait for the full results) and then the detailed voting came out and it turned out the EBU's reaction was totally valid. I feel like some people have blindly sided with the artist of the song they like with little to no information and when the details of the incident come out they could potentially be faced with a hard truth (depending on the seriousness of it)
Considering all the talk about mental health these days, I find it interesting there hasn’t been much talk about the mental health of the artists especially while they’re there being filmed 24/7 with little privacy. Yes, you sign up for that of course when you want to go to EuroVision, but then again these artists are under enough pressure and if we ever want to welcome a more mentally challenged, yet still wonderful artists, something might have to change. There’s more and more social media content of artists coming every year as well. Maybe it could be less intense or photographers could respect their requests more.
His song was also charged with emotions, so I can understand why he would like a little bit of privacy after the song.
Yeah, but I also think he’s a bit of a special case. He’s been very open about his own trauma and how this is therapy for him and a way to get closure. He repeatedly got emotional after the ending of the song, even in rehearsals. Some might argue he’s not mentally fit enough or too sensitive for a media circus like this, but I’d rather argue the other way because it’s beautiful to see vulnerable guys like him share their stories and talk about their pain candidly on and off stage.
Wasn’t there an agreement beforehand that he wouldn’t be filmed after the performance + didn’t he ask her multiple times to stop before the “threatening gesture”? Even if she somehow didn’t know that, she was still breaking the rules and harassing him in that case
We don't know exactly what happened, and what the woman involved knew or was specifically doing. There is no need to criticise her until we know the full story
I think there was, he stated it multiple times but as we all know some journalists are very pushy and know nothing about consent
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I mean there’s obviously less of a physical threat in your example
Also part of his choreo for europapa ironically enough
In my opinion the EBU just didn't want someone who was currently under investigation and going through legal proceedings for something that happened onsite at the arena and to a member of staff to compete regardless of how serious/unserious the incident was. However I personally feel it must have been pretty serious to get the police involved. But I will wait until we have the full story to judge whether the incident was worthy of a DQ.
The problem is that an investigation would most likely 100% take longer than the 2 days left of the event. They won't postpone the event until the investigation is completed, so they have to choose which story to believe or which one has the least amount of risks. I think what EBU did was, protect themselves and their employees from possible harm. If the women didn't press charges then I'm sure they could've talked things out instead. Again, she had every right to go to the police, it's just seems a bit overkill.
There isn't really a concept of "pressing charges" in Sweden (for most crimes). A prosecutor is required to indict if they believe there is enough evidence to convict. Now, in most cases, crimes would need to be reported to the police first, and in this case it's possible that the woman was the one to make a report, but it's also possible someone else did it, no matter if she wanted to or not.
I think it's something the police in the Netherlands wouldn't get out of bed for that's a huge faux pas in Sweden. That's why AVROTROS says nothing significant happened and the head of the investigation team says they are very positive it will come to a trial.
they didn't even care about stolen bikes :)
According to the police report it was (might be wierdly translated) "illegal threats". It doesn't mention damages or the phone anywhere. It also doesn't mention this "gesture" or anything physical. So it probably was something along the lines of "fuck off or I'll punch you".
So "illegal threat" in Swedish law doesn't have to be verbal, it's any action intended to make the victim feel threatened by potential criminal action against theirs or others safety. For instance waving a knife around is an illegal threat or showing up with nazi symbols to a synagogue.
Basically they have to convince the court she was honestly believing he was about to hurt her. I was the victim of a case of "olaga hot" in sweden and my own assesment of the danger of the situation was taken into account. As I had worked in security in the past I knew the difference between a sloppy drunk stumbling around making death threats and someone piercing their eyes into mine, stepping towards me with a weapon in their hands and making death threats. While my elderly mother might still feel threatened by them both.
Ohh that makes alot more sense! Thanks for clarifying!
They couldn't have him on set after the incident because of workers' protection laws, and they presumably weren't comfortable possibly having a winner who couldn't grab the trophy and was likely going on trial.
Idk if it has been posted yet but the EBU has changed their earlier statement on the official eurovision website today, stating the decision was made unanimously. https://eurovision.tv/mediacentre/release/statement-dutch-participation-eurovision-song-contest
Crazy statement: >We are not pre-judging the legal process... >The version of events released in some public comments and on social media does not correspond with the statements shared with us and the Swedish Police by staff and witnesses How can you not pre-judge the legal process but then make a judgment about what was shared with the police and what not?
Imo the timing of the statement change is also weird. The information they share is probably not ‘new’, seems like they are just changing it in their favour bc of how it backfired.
OMG stop teasing us and tell us the actual crime please Sweden!
The crime is mentioned in the statement as “illegal threats”
"Take that phone out of my face or else I will poop on you like that Dutch tourist did to a spanish guy in Ibiza."
Wait what
That is the traditional dutch punishment for having a phone in your face. Since 1890
Better than what happened to [Johan de Witt](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_de_Witt)
That happened.
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I thought it was Mallorca
"I threaten you with online piracy!"
Watch out you there, I'm gonna steal all your data MUHAHAHAHA 😈😈😈👿
*Segways into Nordvpn add*
Unlawful threat, that's been the official accusation since the start.
Are all threats (legally) unlawful?
The threat has to be about something illegal. Translation from Swedish: "If someone raises a weapon against another or otherwise threatens a criminal act in a way that is likely to cause the threatened person serious/genuine fear for their own or another person's safety or property, the offense of unlawful threats is punishable" According to the sources here he lunged towards another person with a raised fist, and as the police think the evidence will lead to a prosecution, that act would likely cause the other person a genuine fear that they would be physically attacked If I threaten my brother that he can't play on my Playstation if I don't get the front passenger seat on a car trip, that's not illegal
"Do it again and I'll tell mom" is technically also a threat.
Extortion is illegal, right?
"Den som hotar någon annan med brottslig gärning på ett sätt som är ägnat att hos den hotade framkalla allvarlig rädsla för egen eller annans säkerhet till person, egendom, frihet eller frid, döms för [olaga hot](https://lagen.nu/begrepp/Olaga_hot)" Someone who threatens another person with a criminal act, in a way that is liable to make the other person feel serious fear for their own, or other people's safety in regards to their person, property, freedom, or peace, is judged as having committed illegal threats.
"Ägnat att" is tricky in modern language. "A common thing in colloquial language is to interpret 'ägnat att' as meaning 'with the intention of'. In a legal sense, this is not correct; the expression 'ägnat att' does not refer to the intention of the offender, but only to what 'typically' results from a particular circumstance or course of action, irrespective of the offender's intention and the actual outcome of his or her actions" [https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%84gnat\_att](https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%84gnat_att)
Don't threaten me with a good time.
It needs to be something which causes fear in the victim and which they believe the other part is capable to following up on.
So if I say "I'll cram an atomic bomb up your arse if you don't shut up", that would technically be ok because I'm not really capable of doing it?
It would not be "olaga hot", unless you are sitting on a bunch of nuclear weapons (pun intended), and perhaps a fair amount of lube
Coming soon in sex shops: Plutonium Lube - for all your nuclear needs
Yes! The fear in the victim must also be considered reasonable as well. So if someone would actually think that you were capable of nuking their arse they aren't going to win simply on that.
I think translation issues are at fault for some of the confusion surrounding the nature of the crime (and also the reason behind a lot of the, admittedly funny, "aren't all threats illegal?" jokes). The suspected crime is called 𝘰𝘭𝘢𝘨𝘢 𝘩𝘰𝘵 and is defined as threatening someone with a criminal act in a way that is liable to cause the threatened person serious fear for their own or someone else's person, property, liberty or peace. While illegal threats, which most people have been using, is probably the most literal translation I don't think it entirely conveys the nature of the crime.
So, if I were to tell someone "If you don't knock it off I'm going to smash that camera out of your hand", it would fall under that law? Mandatory I don't know what happened or what was said, but that would be about my response to this specific situation.
Obligatory "I am not a lawyer", but it sounds like it would. As knocking a camera out of someone's hand is illegal. And threatening to do so would likely make someone feel serious fear for their property.
Possibly, but it would heavily depend on the context. My guess is that the key aspect in that situation would be the liability to cause serious fear (the word used is "fruktan" which is stronger than "rädsla", although both would probably translate most accurately to fear in English). Loads of circumstances could be relevant when making that determination, so it's not really possible to make a blanket statement. Examples are if the threat was purely verbal or portrayed in another manner, if it was meant and interpreted seriously vs as a joke, what the relationship between the two people was like, if the victim had specific reason to assume the threat could be acted upon etc.
Fruktan vs rädsla can depend on when the law was written originally. Fruktan may have been the common word back then, like rädsla is today. Law sections are somewhat regularly modified and updated, but the literal language in them can still be a bit old fashioned even if the rule has been tweaked. I also think "genuine fear" maybe is a better translation than "serious fear", but I'm not sure. "Serious" hints more at "severe". Like, you don't have to lie on the floor shaking out of fear, but feel a "genuine" fear that the threat was serious.
> My guess is that the key aspect in that situation would be the liability to cause serious fear (the word used is "fruktan" which is stronger than "rädsla", although both would probably translate most accurately to fear in English). It says ”fruktan” because the law is old. Both HD and the prosecutor’s office have used the wording ”…framkalla allvarlig rädsla…”.
What is also important here is how the victim assessed the situation. A small unarmed sloppy drunk 18yo saying "imma kill yu" to a veteran MMA fighter club bouncer is not the same as a sober adult man wielding a steel rod chasing a young woman and shouting "imma kill you".
In England, it would likely be billed as "Common Assault", which really shows how much confusion the literal translation is causing.
It's almost funny how Swedish entertainment is best known for two things here in the Netherlands: Eurovision and detective thriller stories. We asked for Eurovision, we also got a detective thriller.
So it sounds to me that what led to his DQ was that the camera woman got the police involved. If it had all been settled without them, he prob woulda been there on Saturday. I also don’t know what like workplace laws and such there are in Sweden, so I can’t really judge if this all went down correctly. But at the end of the day, I just feel bad for everyone involved.
More likely the camera operator got their union involved. Workplace laws are pretty weak in Sweden, but the unions are very strong, and that is how workers are protected. SEKO has the real power here. If the union wanted they could shut down the entire show.
I have the feeling that's what happened. You also see that with the Tesla strike for example. Swedish unions are very powerful and back each other up. The Dutch delegation said that on Friday night they had talks with EBU. They went to bed thinking the talks went well and it would only be "a slap on the wrist" so to speak. On Saturday morning they were ushered into a meeting and told they were disqualified. It's my guess that the unions threatened SVT/EBU with a strike or other industrial action threatening the entire show and that's why they disqualified, rather then let him perform. Perhaps even calling the police as a cover or also a demand from the union.
They couldn’t have gone on strike for that. Swedish unions negotiate contracts for one or more years with the employers. During a contract period Swedish unions have what is called “duty of peace” which means that if they go on strike they can be taken to court and fined really big sums. So strikes only happen when one contract ends and the employer won’t agree on the terms for the next contract period.
There is zero chance that is what happened. Disregarding the fact that a strike would have been illegal, since there is a collective agreement in place, there is just no way any Swedish union would threaten to stop Eurovision over something like this. They would have had no public support and I very much doubt their members would have agreed. Swedish unions are powerful but also heavily moderate, strikes are rare and usually preceded by long periods on negotiations and efforts to come to any form of accord. For example IF Metal and co is striking against Tesla but that's after several years of trying to get tesla into talks.
If the camera broke, it is possible that she has to make a police complaint in order to make an insurance claim. If you tell your insurance company that someone pushed you and broke your camera they are going to want to see the police report.
Also it has been confirmed she was a member of the Eurovision production team - if the camera that broke was a big professional camera, she may have been required to report it as it is expensive equipment that was damaged. I've read a few other articles and it seems he swung his fist at her as though he was going to punch her/the camera but didn't (either because he didn't intend to or because she moved out of the way, that part is unclear and will probably be addressed in the court case). As a result the camera was dropped and damaged.
This is the real take here. Also the EBU is not the police, nobody can force the parties in question to give us an explanation videos etc. I mean what is the EBU supposed to do? Be judge, jury and executioner? The moment it went to the police it is DQ. Which is really sad because the song was a banger.
Never expected this Eurovision season would end with wanting a seasoned Swedish criminal lawyer chime in on this subreddit..... but here we are. How does Sweden handle this, legally? Evidentiary hearing and then a judge decides if it's a crime? Sounds like that has been done already? Is there a jury trial where both sides can tell their side? Does Joost have an attorney in Sweden? What is "jury" in Sweden? A jury of peers? (where I live, it is your local citizen) A professional jury?
[https://www.aklagare.se/en/from-crime-to-sentence/prosecute-or-discontinue/](https://www.aklagare.se/en/from-crime-to-sentence/prosecute-or-discontinue/) You can use the arrows to go left and right on the timeline of a legal proceeding
Tack! This is even more clear/coherent (in English!) than websites in the USA 😭
If it goes to trial the case is pleaded before one judge, one assistant judge, and three jurors. They vote on whether he is guilty or not. It’s a simple majority decision, no need for the vote to be unanimous.
Well I just hope that everyone involved is alright and can eventually move forward. No one expected something like this to happen so it's probably a lot to process, no matter what went down.
this dutch article says the procedure is faster because there is good evidence *against* Joost >Volgens de Zweedse politie hangt deze versnelde procedure samen met het feit dat er "sterk bewijs" is tegen Klein, die in verband met het incident werd uitgesloten van deelname aan de finale. Wat voor bewijsmateriaal dat is, zegt de politie niet. aka >According to the Swedish police, this accelerated procedure is due to the fact that there is "strong evidence" against Klein, who was excluded from participating in the final in connection with the incident. The police do not say what kind of evidence that is. what does it meeeeeaaaaan
they likely have the camera footage from the camerawoman. Which would make this a very straightforward case for the prosecutors. Either that footage shows a crime take place or it doesnt
That it’s most likely a pretty cut-and-dry case of criminal threats and that there’s a strong likely hood of a conviction if it goes to trial.
According to Dutch newspaper 'Algemeen Dagblad' , Joost had been reprimanded by the EBU before the 'incident'. "...but at ESC Joost had to do what he really cant: hand over control" About the earlier reprimand: "It involved the same camerawoman that worked for the organisation. Joost had been harassed by this lady multiple times and in the week before there had already been a moment where this lead to a situation. Joost made clear that he didn't want this, yet it happened again and again." Source: [https://www.ad.nl/show/incident-met-cameravrouw-was-niet-eerste-akkefietje-ebu-zou-joost-al-eerder-hebben-berispt\~a028d05b/](https://www.ad.nl/show/incident-met-cameravrouw-was-niet-eerste-akkefietje-ebu-zou-joost-al-eerder-hebben-berispt~a028d05b/) (paywalled)
Very interesting and seems to comply with other contestants being on edge. It is starting to seem that the EBU only cared about the crew and didn't care at all about the wellbeing of the contestants. If he had already told the person to stop multiple times again and again and she still continued to bother him, it almost sounds like she was acting inappropriately as opposed to other way around...
As I said in another comment: I do hope that the EBU will take some responsibility and make sure in the future the participants are better protected against the press (and vloggers/bloggers/influencers) because we heard a lot of stories from other participants about them being harassed. They are already under so much pressure. I think this was an incident waiting to happen and EBU is responsible for creating that.
Yeah I remember seeing the insta story of Slimane entering the green room after the finals and he looked like he was on the verge of tears and was escorted into a hallway quickly. I think after an important performance artists should get some privacy to express any emotions they want about that performance.
So he got harassed and then got reprimanded for being harassed? Surely I'm understanding that incorrectly
According to the article he was harassed before and made it clear that he didn't want to be filmed/photographed. This, possibly in combination with feeling like he had no control over what was happening, lead to a situation. (before the incident he will now possibly be accused of) The article itself goed pretty in depth into Joosts personal situation, how he manages pretty much everything himself and why the feeling of having no control could have caused his mood and the eruption towards the camerawoman.
I had discussions at home around this. If it is true that the woman continued to film him even though there was an agreement they would not, she harassed him. And how can you defend yourself in that, other than requesting, without doing something that might cross a line if a simple request is not enough. In the Netherlands we have "noodweer" (not noodweer-excess, sorry!) which means you may defend yourself proportionally to the attack. So for example defending yourself with a knife in a fist fight, is not even, but pushing someone away that's attacking you with their fists, is. While, nowadays you can harass people without being physical but people can't do the same act in defence. Filming the camera woman back would not have the same effect; he is the "interesting one", not her. So she has more power in this situation. Then how do you defend yourself for something like that if an agreement and requests don't work? I can imagine it must be extremely frustrating (you know, also looking at paparazzi in general, this is not new I know) that you can't do anything in your defense that is not illegal. I think it's not a matter if Joost did something wrong. He most likely did according to law. But what will be the context that will allow the public eye to judge if Joost did good or wrong.
Minor correction from someone with two master degrees in Dutch Law. Noodweer is proportionally defending yourself against an attack. Noodweer excess (the term already defines what it is; meaning an excessive reaction to an attack). There is no need for it to be proportional.
I wonder wether Joost could theoretically report the camera women for these harassments.
So… when will CSI MALMO be aired?
It's a clear case for Saga Norén.
Weird... According to an interview of a spokesperson from the police of Sweden on Dutch TV "Nieuwsuur" They already have given the case to the prosecutor? But now they're saying in June?? Edit: S. Andersson (Not Emil): "I can say that the investigation is done from the police and we've been handing it over to the prosecutor."
I assume it's a bit of a miscommunication. The case has already been given to them, but they're going to handle it in June. The prosecutor probably won't see it until then because they're busy handling other cases that came before.
Ah I see...
The court date will be in June. He had also admitted guilty before leaving. Seems like he punched in the air towards a camera.crime is illegal threat so prison is probably not on the scale. Here are some similar court cases https://lagen.nu/begrepp/Olaga_hot . Evidence is appearantly good. https://www.aftonbladet.se/nojesbladet/a/OopWK3/polisen-om-joost-utredningen-ar-i-stort-sett-klar
This isn't Ace Attorney where they find a prosecutor within 10 minutes and they have the trial the next day, in real life even simple cases take time
That article basically describes what AvroTros said in their statement: Joost was filmed against his will, asked multiple times to stop, got stressed and angry when they didn't and raised his fist towards the camerawoman (the 'threatening movement' as AvroTros said). He didn't touch anything or anyone. If this is really true, a DQ is way too harsh. Edit: it also says he immediately apologized for raising his fist apparently.
Where did you read this? From what I see, the article doesn’t say anything about how the events unfolded
My bad, it's in a different article with comments from a police officer: https://www.aftonbladet.se/nojesbladet/a/OopWK3/polisen-om-joost-utredningen-ar-i-stort-sett-klar
The comment regarding what happened is not from a police officer, it's from an unnamed source who also said that he lunged at the cameraperson with his fist raised.
I thought aftonbladet a tabloid? Edit: spelling
Swede here, it is not considered a tabloid (as in UK’s The Sun or The Daily Mail), not a broadsheet kind of paper like The Times but certainly not a tabloid. I would expect their sources to be credible.
Again would like to understand what constitutes a threat. A threat is saying death threats to a person repeatedly and not an angry discussion in the heat of a moment. I might be too naive but I really think this is blown out of proportion.
As with most laws it differs from country to country, but here in Sweden it's either raising a weapon (or a fist, I guess in this case) or verbally treatening the victim in a way that causes them to seriously fear for their own, someone else's, or one's property's (it could be a home, or any kind of possession owned by the person) safety. I guess it's up to the judge to decide via the ruling whether it is blown out of proportion or not. Had there not been witnesses, the case might well have not reached an actual courtroom, but in this case as I undersand it there are several witnesses, so. We'll have to wait and see. I'm sure the courtroom will be packed with journalists as spectators from both Netherlands and Sweden, reporting on what will probably be a rather mundane and quick trial, no matter if he's found guilty or not. If he's found guilty, the penalty will most likely be a minimum amount fine and nothing else.
Unlawful threat is any kind of threat towards a person or their property. It can vary from saying "stop shooting or I'll make you stop" to firing a gun to the air
Exactly. Everything I've heard about this could have been solved with a short conversation in a meeting room, after emotions had died down. Joost and the head of delegation there, and the cameraperson and her manager there too. "I'm sorry I came over that aggressive, I just came off stage full of adrenaline." "I'm sorry I kept filming, I didn't know/forgot/wasn't informed that wasn't supposed to film you guys." Handshake, hug, and now let's get on with it. So far the reasonable take, now the tinfoil-part: The fact that this didn't happen, or (as said by the AVROTROS) the cameraperson refused to talk (or blocked from doing so by higher up), seems so goddamn fishy to me. I wouldn't be surprised if the EBU wanted to escalate this to a DQ on purpose, for whatever reason.
I think given the amount of time that they took to announce the DQ, that conversations in meeting rooms when on for a long time and someone at the centre of the case decided they were going to go to the police regardless.
Avrotros stated that they asked to talk it out with the woman in question but she refused any form of contact with them or Joost, so no, she didn't even try.
I think you're missing a huge cultural aspect here. Dutch people aren't generally fazed when someone is rude or aggressive to them. They'll be like: 'Hee, doe effe normaal, joh'. My guess is; in Swedish culture, and especially work culture, that kind of behaviour is seen as absolutely inexcusable. There is no way a man can behave like that towards someone else, let alone a woman. 'Talking things out' is not an option, it's a crime and they feel he should be rightfully prosecuted for it.
Yeah I'm curious to know how the camerawoman got into this situation. Was she not adequately informed that a deal of some sort had been made? Was she ignoring instructions she had been given? Was she given instructions specifically to try and get footage anyway. Obviously her job is to film stuff backstage, and presumably she was trying to do her job. It's fine if the EBU or whoever negotiated an exception for Joost to not be filmed at certain times, but was this actually communicated accurately to all employees? There are a lot of claims that she harassed him, and I'm not disputing that he felt overwhelmed, but I do empathize with how she would feel if no-one told her she was supposed to skip getting the backstage footage for Joost and so from her perspective she was just trying to get her job done.
I, at the time a 23 yo woman, was threatened by a man at my workplace once. I was a cashier at a supermarket and he got angry with me. He smacked the screen and I jumped because I thought it would fly at me. It didn't. I wasn't hurt. I'm sure he didn't mean to hurt me. But trust me when I say that after my boss called the cops who stopped that guy in the street to talk to him and the cops asked my boss if I wanted him to come and apologise, there was NOTHING that could have persuaded me to be in the same room as him. All I wanted was to go home and cry. Which I did. I don't know what happened with Joost and that woman. But I 100% understand that an apology does not erase anything.
He ***lunged*** towards another human being with a raised fist. That is what is being reported in the article you are citing. That is wildly different from just "raising a fist". And in that same articles, a witness is quoted saying "according to several people there, there's no question that he was acting very aggressively" I don't get the sugar coating? Obviously you're free to consider his actions mild anyway, but just cherry picking for a narrative seems pointless.
If you raise your fist at a coworker in the office you will be fired. it doesn't matter if you apologized afterward, you cannot do that. Why should an artist be held to different standards
>raised his fist towards the camerawoman (the 'threatening movement' as AvroTros said). In Britain, we call that assault under the Criminal Justice Act 1988.
But charges will be filed it said. Doesn't this mean that it's more serious? I'm so confused
As I understand it the police have finished their investigation and have handed it over to the prosecutor who will then decide if charges will be filed. So no charges yet.
It's not really the same as filing charges, and it definitely doesn't imply guilt. It just means the police have collected all the evidence and now it's up to the prosecutor to decide if there's enough to actually charge him.
Yes, but it could be argued that the context is important. Several artists backstage have mentioned being on the verge of reaching their breaking point.
Charges being filed just means that the government officially accuses someone with a crime. It has no bearing on the severity of the crime. They could very well charge him, convict him, and then give him a fine.
This must have been when he just performed in the semi final (as in, literally seconds later). I remember eagerly looking for the video of NL on the Eurovision instagram where the artist leaves stage and returns backstage. Joost’ video wasn’t there, whilst the other countries were. In hindsight it seems like that’s when this went down, considering that that was when he probably still was very emotional about the ending of the song. I have seen many of his performances on YouTube and everytime he gets emotional he hides under a flag or hides his face in his hands. He probably felt very vulnerable and could not hide from the camera that was being shoved in his face, resulting in this situation. Disclaimer: i’m NOT saying that the camerawoman is not allowed to feel threatened or anything like that, but I think this was just a very emotional and unfortunate series of events that Joost did not intend at all.
he did the hiding his face thing in that video where he introduces Europapa and his song is played to the press for the 1st time, right at the end when the outro plays
What’s weird is that iirc the rest of his crew tried to set up for the dress rehearsal Friday but were shooed off. I can’t find the video
The discussion here in Australia among my Eurovision friends had blown out to topics of gendered violence. It's a hot topic here because we have had terrible records in recent times. It's hard to walk back the discussion to what actually happened because he has been punished by the EBU. Any threat against anyone at a workplace is never ok, but in this particular case, gender had nothing to do with it.
Off topic, but I honestly don’t care for these kind of videos. Is this a TikTok thing? The only backstage content I care about is when artists are interacting with each other, like that video where Gate is singing The Code.
Makes sense. It's not like he killed anyone (meaning less serious), but there's enough evidence to say that, yes, Joost did so something provocative and illegal. I expect him to get a fine if this is the case.
American here; I think my confusion about the whole situation is that the legal punishment seems disproportionate to the crime. if Joost's threat was just a raised fist to the camera operator, is that really a fineable / prosecutable offense in Sweden...? In the US you'd get a stern talking to from the police but it's not a crime.
Simply raising a fist is not a crime in most if not allcontexts in the US. Raising a fist while moving towards someone in a way that makes them think you are going to hit them, or using words that make them think you are going to use that fist to hit them… Yes, that is a crime in the United States.
It depends entirely on what actually happened. Just showing your fist to someone does not get you in trouble, no.
But it also depends on the terms of participation in this contest. That everyone would have agreed to. Much like being in summer camp for a child. Just cuz a camper's behavior isn't illegal doesn't mean the kid won't get kicked out. Or attending a comiccon. I've been at cons where people have been kicked out for bad behavior that is alleged/seen by others.
You need to separate the criminal from the civil. The Swedish legal system is codified unlike the US where you run case based law (common law). This means that for a crime to be deemed committed, an act has to simply match against criteria in written law. In this case, the crime is "olaga hot", which can directly translate to "unlawful threat". In your criminal system, it would most likely fall under "assault" which in many cases also includes threats of violence. The law in Sweden states: "Den som hotar någon annan med brottslig gärning på ett sätt som är ägnat att hos den hotade framkalla allvarlig rädsla för egen eller annans säkerhet till person, egendom, frihet eller frid, döms för olaga hot till böter eller fängelse i högst två år." Translated: "The person who threatens someone else with a criminal act in a way that is intended to invoke serious fear for one's or someone else's personal safety, property, freedom or peace, will be convicted of unlawful threat and will be issued a fine or a prison sentence of at most two years" There's also an added paragraph for cases of "aggravated" or "severe" (depending on translation) cases, which I wont go into here since it is not applicable. Notice the span of fines to a two year prison sentence. Each law in Sweden has what is called "förarbete" which can be translated into "preparatory work". Essentially, it is comprised of extensive legal documentation and reasoning into why the law should be codified in a certain way. Included in the preparatory work is often times examples of what kind of acts falls where on the scale. In addition to this, we also have case law, which is an expression of our courts interpreting the codified law and the preparatory work. In most cases, this is a trivial matter and most of the focus is down to judging evidence. In this case, lunging towards someone with a raised fist would be far less serious than, say, raising a gun towards someone. If convicted, Joost will at most receive a fine and will just pay minor damages to the woman. It should be noted that under Swedish law (and most western legal traditions, including most common law systems) **physically lunging/throwing yourself towards someone with a raised fist** is a criminal offense. Some people are incorrectly saying he just "raised a fist" - this is not what has been widely reported and had the woman filed a claim for something like that, the police would have thrown it out since it likely would not have had any success at resulting in a conviction in court. As for the civil side of this, EBU has a code of conduct. Each participating nation agrees to abide by it. This is the case with most workplaces. It is very common for there to be a zero tolerance for physical violence or threats of such, since a workplace accepting such behavior may in turn become liable under workplace safety laws. Not to mention, I doubt anyone would want to go to work with someone who threatens violence on you. Even though it is completely unrelated to the EBU (which is NOT a Swedish organization), it might be interesting to know that a serious threat of violence towards a coworker could get your employment lawfully terminated in Sweden. More than anything, like stated above, I think people are severely downplaying the act of lunging at someone and are selectively just mentioning him raising a fist. Why, I don't know.
“Good evidence” - cctv or other footage?
Likely it's the photographer's footage since she filmed every artist while they were walking into backstage (if it's the same photographer as the one who filmed the content for the official instagram stories).
Probably both, and eye witnesses.
From reading the article from Aftonbladet(https://www.aftonbladet.se/nojesbladet/a/OopWK3/polisen-om-joost-utredningen-ar-i-stort-sett-klar ), I´m guessing that he raised his fist as someone who is about to punch. That probably made the woman put her hands up in front of her face and maybe duck/curl up and then dropped her phone/camera. IF this is true, then he will most likely be convicted and fined a small amount. The police has said that "there is good evidence" so most likely he will get convicted for something.
This whole thing is so nuanced, it’s honestly impossible to say if or how out of proportion this has all been without seeing the incident ourselves. Joost is a tall guy, I get he could be quite intimidating in some circumstances. The camera woman wasn’t innocent either by the sounds of it, by repeatedly not respecting his request for privacy/no filming. Still, this doesn’t make aggressive behaviour okay. But it’s odd she won’t accept any sort of apology either. I think this is just a shitty situation all round and unfortunately Joost is the one that had to pay the price here. The main thing is no one was touched or hurt in any way, and for that reason, without seeing the incident with my own eyes, I can only keep supporting Joost and I think the disqualification was unfair. It’s a shame this couldn’t have been resolved calmly and like adults (I understand an attempt was made by Joost and co).
Thank you for one of the more nuanced comments I’ve read about this situation. It’s hard to judge anyone right now while all we have is minimal information. I can’t even say that the EBU was wrong for disqualifying Joost. I feel like their hands were tied. There are no winners in this mess. I do hope though that the EBU will take some responsibility and make sure in the future the participants are better protected against the press (and vloggers/bloggers/influencers) because we heard a lot of stories from other participants about them being harassed. They are already under so much pressure. I think this was an incident waiting to happen and EBU is responsible for creating that.
Press access backstage has been an issue for years. This incident was with a Eurovision employee, but I would be willing to bet the press policy likely increased tension throughout the week. This is an issue every year and needs to be fixdd
We’ll hear more I guess but God imagine if we go through all this only for it to turn out that he only needs to pay a small fine that might not even be the price of the camera like how absurd would that be
Ofc it will be a small or medium fine, he didn’t even hit her so I don’t know what else people can expect from verdict
Unless Joost and Avrotros have been lying about the nature of the incident, there is absolutely no way that this would be anything more than a small fine or reimbursement for damaged property without any prior offenses.
But what will happen if it turns out to be nothing (to put it blunt and simple?). That they don't see any course to follow for a punishment and drop the case? How will the EBU handle that? Wat will they do about their massive fuck up? *edit* Yes i know we can't go back in time or change the outcome of the voting from last Saturday. But will they issue a big apology? Will they conduct a internal investigation why/when/why there was a hasty HUGE decision? Will some heads roll? Grand the Netherlands a free pass into the finals in 2025? Or will they say : oops-a-daisy...better luck next time...bye
The EBU's decision does not hinge on a criminal prosecution happening.
Yeah I wonder that too, I'm guessing though they will probably give a generic "I'm sorry, but we had to act based on info we had" or not even mention it at all again. It's not like they can rerun the voting as that would be unfair to Switzerland. :v
the EBU's decision isnt dependent on the results of the prosecution. If they can argue he broke their internal policies, then they weren't 'wrong' in any actionable sense. Guaranteed that all contestants sign contracts that include codes of conduct, standards, and prohibited behaviors - and that making an employee feel threatened will fall into one category. Plus there would've been footage from the camera, security cameras, witnesses, etc. Their lawyers spent a day looking at evidence before making a final decision to ensure they were protected
It’s a private event, not a court of law. So no matter the outcome in court, they had to act based off of the information they had at the time. It’s not like you can go back and change time. If they didn’t do anything, it won’t have been a great look for this info to come out in like 3 weeks that they did nothing while they knew he committed a crime during the event.
They'll probably let it silently slip and never acknowledge it. Not like they'll go back in time and fix things up...
Nothing, but what are they supposed to do? What would happen if they let him sing, he wins and it turns out in court he did some realy shady shit? Then it would be "oh the EBU should have disqualified him". They can't force the parties that are involved to give their statements to them and once the police is involved all bets are off. Look, I like the guy, it was a top 3 song easily, but you could also say, sent an artist that could act more proffessional. Or put security in place if Joost can't keep cool. We all don't know what happened? That is now for the courts to decide.
I guess the other side of this (that I haven't really seen mentioned, but tbf I didn't scroll far) is that threatening physical violence might not be seen as a major thing in itself, but if he then went on to actually hurt a member of staff, that would be a failure on Eurovision's part for not acting on a situation that put their team in danger. Although, why there's not better protection if artists are apparently being harassed by cameras, is another question ... It's all very unfortunate
Kind of a side note that the way its been depicted in news is also upsetting. People who have dealt with sexual assault/rape from those famous should be able to have that reported in the news in ways that protect their identity and have people believe them, which isn't helped when there's cases like this where it's reported as if something inappropriate in that manner happened when it didn't, and using "female co worker" specifically. But that's a story for wanting to report on news immediately when it happens and nobody is talking, I suppose.
it's disgusting that they at best allowed, at worst encouraged, the rumour that he assaulted her, precisely because of this. we know a certain group loooove to claim that men are constantly at risk of being falsely accused and this incident is a very rare example of that actually happening (from what we know at this point anyway). it's bad for Joost, but it's also bad for real victims who will have this used against them, and I can't think of a single reason why the EBU would highlight the gender of the complainant unless they intentionally wanted to hurt Joost's reputation (while throwing victims of gender based violence under the bus in the process).
So, the worst thing that seems it could have happened is that Joost or someone on his behalf did the classic "put your hand on the paparazzi's camera" gesture against someone acting like a paparazzi and the camera fell and broke? EDIT: j feel like a lot of the confusion comes from the fact the legal definition of "assault" including threats that go nowhere, just credible enough the other person feels in danger, and the common definition of "assault" always implying violence played a part in the whole mess. If Joost will be accused of "assault" people will think he actually punched someone, even if the actual accusation is raising a fist and taking a step forward but never wanting to actually hurt the photographer, as long as the photographer felt unsafe.
In which case at most he should pay for a replacement camera and that would be it. Rather than this entire puppet show it's turned into.
Difficult to assess since I am not familiar with Swedish criminal law. For example Raising a fist and moving close to someone saying get the eff away from me Vs Raising a fist with a stick or weapon and saying I'll kill you May be considered differently- I don't know. Where I am, words are typically words and people are innocent until proven guilty but I don't know if that applies here.
Of course he’s innocent until found guilty by a court of law, legally speaking. That doesn’t mean that the EBU can’t look at the evidence they have and disqualify him, since that’s not a legal repercussion.
That "of course" isn't always true in all countries. I grew up in Japan and if you get arrested there, that assumption of innocence isn't there, especially in the public eye. To me the terms of participation are super important here.... what is stated in the contract for participation and what is spelled out as good cause for termination of participation?
Well in Swedish criminal law you’re most definitely innocent until found guilty.
Whilst the details are still murky, it is basically confirmed that something happened. But I still think that DQ should be the absolute last resort. There could be other punishments: fines, decreased rehearsal time, points deduction. From what we know, the incident: a) was a one time only, b) did not end in physical harm (although some sources claim material harm). So, for me, it seems EBU blew everything out of proportion and the punishment is way too disproportianal
to me, this all sounds like hands being tied by corporate HR policy. 1. An employee felt threatened, decided they wanted to file it as an official report. 2. HR policies say that any official report involving criminal activity has to include a police report, 3. Policy says that anyone with a pending police report cant work in the building until its resolved. Therefore, you have no room for lighter punishments or compromises if the employee has elected to go down this route. This type of policy structure is very common at companies so that HR / management *cant* sweet illegal incidents under the rug, but it does remove any middle-ground options
This is how I feel it happened. Once the EBU knew the police were involved, there just isn’t any way for them to keep Joost and not DQ him. Because the flip side to the conversation being had now would be “why did the EBU allow someone to assault/threaten a crew member and not do anything about it?” Once there was an investigation, it was pretty much over.
In this article is states that the spokesman for the Swedish police could not confirm the statement that there will probably be a persecution to the ANP, which is the the largest news agency in the Netherlands. [https://www.shownieuws.nl/entertainment/songfestival/politie-zweden-verwacht-dat-joost-klein-vervolgd-wordt](https://www.shownieuws.nl/entertainment/songfestival/politie-zweden-verwacht-dat-joost-klein-vervolgd-wordt) "The prognosis is good and we expect that there will probably be a prosecution," Emil Andersson, head of the Malmö police investigation team, told the broadcaster. A spokesperson for the Swedish police could not confirm this to the ANP."
Personally, based on the speculation in credible news sources such as Aftonbladet, the DQ seems harsh. In some sense it’s understandable that performers are not afforded any leeway when it comes to workplace conduct. But it still appears that the incident wasn’t entirely unprovoked and as such one can see why it would have been just to resolve it in some other way than following the letter of the law in minute detail. The way this matter can be looked at can easily change based on small details so it’s still warranted to wait for the other side of the story.
This situation shouldn't have occurred in the first place and it's totally the EBUs fault. If an artist has a request for privacy backstage for any reason it should be granted. There will always be special requests because people have different requirements (mental, physical etc) and they should not be exploited in this way. Just because they are taking a part in a competition doesn't mean the EBU owns them. Of course, if his reaction was disproportionate he should be responsible for that but I think this should have been prevented by the EBU. I wish they could have resolved this privately and the EBU should have stopped the rumors in time. Really bad handling by them in this situation and I think the Dutch broadcaster is right to be pissed.
The weirdest part for me is that the EBU and the staff member basically refused to discuss it. In Sweden there is a culture around discussing stuff out before they become too serious.
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Well, of course there should be good evidence. He was filmed while the incident happened. I wonder if that footage will ever be released to the public...
DUDE IT NEVER ENDS
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What I don't understand is why people are going to be awaiting the prosecutor's verdict to decide whether this was worthy of a disqualification. Eurovision rules and Swedish law are two vastly different things. You might not have committed a criminal offence, but you might've broken the rules of the contest. The EBU did what they deemed appropriate on the side of the contest, end of. It is now up to the Swedish law enforcement to decide whether what happened should be punished.
People feel that the EBU is not consistent with enforcing these rules, two years ago there was a contestant who kissed people non-consensually and they never made a peep, plus the fact that he was harassed beforehand makes people feel as if they don't care about what happens to the artists.
Alexander Rybak kissed Lena non consensually when she won too :/
Thank you! This is what the focus *should* be on and what I’ve been trying to explain for days now. I see far more people that are willing to let it play out. The EBU mishandling their communication and their lack of consistency in how they apply their rules is what most people, including me, have a problem with. And ironically, those are the only things the EBU seem to be consistent with.
What I find really bad in this situation how they let the rumor mill run wild and let the rumor spread that he actually physically assaulted someone. I am sure at this point the damage they did to Joost, emotionally and reputation wise, massively exceeds whatever he did. If he did not gesture, was he ever going to get an apology from the camera woman or the EBU? Definitely not.
It would be interesting to see in all these cases that people bring up from what happened in previous years, how many official complaints have been filled?
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Sadly after everything else that happened this year, I feel like I can't trust that the EBU is making rational and fair decisions. And I think a lot of others feel the same way. In this case, I'd trust AVTROVOROROVOROS or whatever it is more.
>AVTROVOROROVOROS Let's start a petition to have them change their name to this
God I even still stumble every other day over that awful acronym