On 13 May 2008 the cartoonist Gregorius Nekschot, who worked under a cover name, was arrested by six policemen, an examining judge, a public prosecutor and two court officers and held in custody for over 30 hours. This was all because of a few cartoons that according to the Ministry of Justice were 'discriminating' and guilty of 'inciting hate and violence'. Nekschot's computer was also taken away during the raid and DVDs and CDs were confiscated. Besides the very large group involved in the arrest, the timing also seemed strange: it later transpired that the arrest of Nekschot came three years after the complaint against him had been filed.
Colleague cartoonists and the Dutch Association of Journalists (NVJ) came out in support of Nekschot, although they were certainly not always in agreement with the content of his drawings. Cartoons by Nekschot had been published, among other places, on Theo van Gogh's website 'De gezonde roker' (The Healthy Smoker). A small version of his mostly verbal commentaries is printed weekly in HP/De Tijd. Nekschot was compelled to remove from his website the eight illustrations which prompted the complaint but these were later printed integrally in issues of HP/De Tijd.