Man faces jail if he writes more than two letters of complaint to the council a month

A man who has been plaguing the municipality of Dordrecht in the western Netherlands with thousands of letters in the last years has been warned that he has now been given a letter-limit of two per month.

The court in Dordrecht has ruled that for any extra letter or e-mail that Mustafa Karasahin sends to the municipality, he will spend a day in jail, with a maximum of a year. The warning extends to any other form of contact to the municipality. The city of Dordrecht asked the court to impose some sort of ban on the professional complainer, who has sent 3,500 letters to the municipality in only two years.
According to the municipality, Karasahin was a slumlord, but Karasahin himself believes that the municipality was using a different yardstick to measure him. That was two years ago. Since then, Karasahin has been beleaguering the municipality with letters. His lawyer stated earlier that it was out of revenge. Karasahin himself admits he wanted to make the city pay up. Dordrecht is obliged to answer all letters and e-mails.
Having to answer letters from residents costs the municipality money, and this particular complainer has been costing Dordrecht more money than the average citizen. The municipality spends almost €500,000 per year answering correspondence. With this ban, the municipality “hopes” that Karasahin will now stop sending letters. If he doesn’t, then the municipality will make use of the possibility to put the man behind bars. A spokesperson for the municipality said that Karasahin has said that he will continue pestering the city, perhaps under another name.