It was heartwarming to see how much support and funds were raised for the case of Britt Marie Hermes, who now lives in Germany. She used to be a naturopathic “doctor” until she retired from the profession in 2014 and blew the whistle on her blog www.naturopathicdiaries.com. She was sued for defamation by American naturopath Colleen Huber, who lost the case before a German Court on May 24, 2019. Thanks to the Australian Skeptics, more than 50,000 euros (nearly $60,000 US) have been raised to help defend Hermes against Huber.
Our Belgian authors, Patrick Vermeren and Bart Van de Venare, are being sued by a multimillionaire, Carl Van de Velde, for defamation. Van de Velde, who markets himself as a business coach, is asking for damages of 400,000 euros ($473,000), even though his company records show an increased profit of 2.4 million euros (which is over a million more than the year before). In our opinion, this action is intended to have a chilling effect on skeptics. Vermeren and Van de Venare won the case before the Court of First Instance in Ghent, Belgium. So far, legal costs amount to 53,000 euros ($63,000). However, Van de Velde has decided to bring the case to the Court of Appeal. They are now facing lengthy court proceedings and more legal costs.
Our authors wrote a skeptical article in the Belgian SKEPP magazine about two companies active in the field of human resources that use dubious theories such as NLP (neurolinguistic programming) and characterization of people based on their skull (phrenology) and physiognomy (interpretation of outward appearance, in this case of face and hair). One of the two companies discussed in the article was the Carl Van de Velde Training Institute. Vermeren and Van de Venare have—based on careful research of multiple sources—criticized the content of the pseudoscientific master classes and the marketing tricks Van de Velde uses to attract participants.
We appeal to the international skeptic community to support the two authors of the Belgian SKEPP magazine and hope to receive the same (financial) support as Britt Hermes.
Carl Van de Velde and his training institute have been very successful financially. Van de Velde uses his deep pockets to scare and silence critics and skeptics. International solidarity among skeptics is our best bet to preserve freedom of speech and to remain skeptics both in writing and verbally. Skeptics should not be silenced. The Belgian SKEPP-tics have set up a fundraiser campaign. You can find it at https://skepp.be/lawsuit.