On Friday, the free press organization, Reporters Without Borders, criticized the Dutch royal family’s recent lawsuit threat against the Associated Press.
Reuters File
RWB claims there is no reason to ban the photos of Crown Prince Willem-Alexander, Crown Princess Maxima and their daughter, Princess Catharina-Amalia skiing in Argentina last month.
“We fully support the Associated Press’s freedom to cover and photograph any subject it considers newsworthy,” said Reporters Without Borders on its website. “Members of the Dutch royal family are public figures of the kind that are often the subject of photo stories in international magazines. Their privacy must obviously be respected but Prince Willem-Alexander and his family were in a public ski resort abroad and the photos did absolutely no harm to their honor or reputation.
“We are also very concerned about the demands been made in addition to a ban on the offending photos. The royal family wants the Associated Press to undertake to henceforth only photograph them at official functions. If the Dutch courts comply with this request, it will limit the press to being promotional agencies that just publish photos selected for them. This would be censorship pure and simple, and would give other heads of states the opportunity to demand similar treatment.
“Most of the Dutch news media have freely chosen not to publish photos of the royal family when they are not performing official functions but the same does not necessarily apply to international media, which are free to tackle this subject from other angles and which could be interested in photos of the royal family that do not come from its protocol services.”
Several Dutch newspapers used the AP photos of the royals, but withdrew them following complaints from the royals. However, the AP did not withdraw the pictures from their database, and therefore a lawsuit is occurring.
A court date is set for August 14th to examine the issue.
It is against a Dutch mediacode for the royal family to be photographed during private moments, unless the media had been invited.
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