description of one of his cartoons. 'It felt like being in a Monty Python'. Justice minister Hirsch Ballin informed Parliament on May 20, 2008, that the purpose of the police visit was the search itself and that it was only a coïncidence that the cartoonist had been present and was arrested. He also added that two uniformed police officers had stood guard in front of Nekschot's house. Allegations Gregorius Nekschot's arrest was preceded by several reports to the police of discrimination, the first of which was made in April 2005. Many said the reports were made at the initiative of a controversial Dutch convert to Islam, but no source was given. The office of the public prosecutor alleged that after reviewing dozens of cartoons by Gregorius Nekschot, it considered that eight cartoons, by attributing negative qualities to certain groups of people, are insulting and constituted the crime of discrimination according to article 137c and possibly also the crime of inciting hate according to article 137d of the Dutch Penal Code. Anonymity In several reports the cartoonist's fear of losing his anonymity and becoming a target of physical attack have been mentioned. The editors of HP/De Tijd have reported that the cartoonist experienced that one police officer made fun of him losing his anonymity because of his arrest. Prosecution The public prosecutor in the case has been named as Paul Velleman. In an article in de Volkskrant Henny Sackers, from the law school of Radboud University in Nijmegen, is quoted to suggest that the prosecutor may use Nekschot as a case-study to explore the limits of the laws on free speech. In parliament, the evening before, the justice minister Hirsch Ballin had denied a similar suggestion by MP De Wit for the SP. Hirsch Ballin specified his own involvement with the arrest of Nekschot as follows. The prosecutor's office had been intensely and meticulously busy with the cartoons and had been in contact with the minister on several occasions. The prosecutor himself had done a very careful assessment, in which the LECD was of the utmost importance, but had by himself concluded for which cartoons he was going to prosecute. In December 2006 the prosecutor had informed the minister about his intention to press charges against Gregorius Nekschot. In this communication the prosecutor specified which cartoons he deemed liable to prosecution and which cartoons not. There followed, said the minister, more