Following the news that Russian President Putin was coming to Amsterdam to open an exhibition in the Hermitage Museum on the 8th of April, Amnesty International asked us to develop a campaign that would send a clear message concerning the human-rights situation in Russia. The campaign was aimed at the Dutch public and authorities and at Mr Putin and his entourage. Instead of the usual protest outcries, we decided to use the weapon of irony. Using a variety of media, we asked the public not to frighten Mr Putin with subjects he couldn’t handle and declared the Museum and the surrounding streets and canals ‘human-rights free’. After the visit, when Mr Putin was on his way back home, we announced that the situation had ‘normalised’ again.

During the days prior to the visit we broadcast a television commercial with the urgent request not to talk about issues such as gay rights, independent journalism and freedom of demonstration in the vicinity of Mr Putin on the 8th of April. A full-page newspaper advert on the morning of the 8th of April contained the same message. We also used online banners to ask the general public for their cooperation - no critical blogs today, please! Around the Hermitage, the museum where Mr Putin was received, we created a 'human-rights-free zone' with a range of outdoor means, such as posters on bridges and buildings, floating billboards, driving billboards, shelters, handlebar hangers, demarcation tape, etc. In the evening, when Mr Putin was on his plane back home, we broadcast a closing commercial saying that the situation had returned to normal and that the relevant topics could be discussed freely again.

The campaign was picked up by all the media. Offline media (television news, current-affairs programmes, newspapers) and online media and news media used the campaign to illustrate the Dutch protest against Mr Putin's policy. The response in the social media was also overwhelming - the campaign was shared enthusiastically and rated highly on Twitter, Facebook and other platforms. That week the photo album on the Amnesty website counted 55,000 unique visitors. Then the album went viral around the world. On the social-media site Reddit it turned up as the second topic for many hours, only behind the announcement of Margaret Thatcher's death. After a few days there were almost half a million views. A well-known Dutch television journalist who was near President Putin during the visit, tweeted verbatim: “He simply must have seen this.”.