Robert van Voren

Robert van Voren (publishing pseudonym of Johannes Baks,[1] Dutch: Johannes Bax,[2] born 25 July 1959, Montreal, Quebec, Canada[3]) is a Dutch human rights activist,[4] sovietologist and historian.[5]

In this Dutch name, the surname is van Voren, not Voren.
Robert van Voren
Johannes Bax
Robert van Voren (left) and professor Bastiaans in 1987
Born (1959-07-25) July 25, 1959
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
CitizenshipCanada, Netherlands, Lithuania
Alma materAmsterdam University
Known forhis Russian studies, human rights activism and participation in struggle against political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union
Awards from Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands for his work as a human rights activist
Scientific career
Fieldspolitical science, psychiatry
Institutions
Websiterobertvanvoren.com

He is a professor of Soviet and post-Soviet studies in the Ilia State University in Tbilisi (Georgia) and in the Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas (Lithuania)[6] as well as Chief Executive of the international foundation Human Rights in Mental Health-Federation Global Initiative on Psychiatry and Executive Director of the Andrei Sakharov Research Center for Democratic Development at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, Lithuania.

Biography

He was born on 7 July 1959, Montreal,[3] Quebec, Canada[7] and graduated from Amsterdam University in 1986.[8] In the 1980s, he worked at the Bukovsky Foundation based in Amsterdam[9] and since 1989 was the director of its successor, the Second World Center.[10] Since 1980, he had regularly visited the Soviet Union including Ukraine and collected information on repression of dissidents,[11] as well as smuggling Samizdat publications to the west. In 1986, he became Chief Executive of the Global Initiative on Psychiatry.[11] He is also a Honorary Fellow of the British Royal College of Psychiatrists and Honorary Member of the Ukrainian Psychiatric Association.[12] In 2005, he was knighted by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands for his work as a human rights activist.[12] He has a Lithuanian citizenship[13] since 11 February 2003[3] and lives in Vilnius.[14]

Robert van Voren has published over a dozen books.[8] His works cover political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union[15] and China[16] and reforms of mental health in Eastern Europe,[17] the former Soviet Union,[18] Ukraine,[19] Georgia.[20] Robert van Voren's contribution to reform of forensic psychiatry in states of the former Soviet Union is widely recognized.[21] Van Voren also published widely on the theme of the Holocaust in Lithuania.

In 2015, he commented the Ukrainian crisis and the Russian military intervention in the Syrian Civil War.[22]

Van Voren wrote about his disappointment with the results of the Dutch referendum on the Ukraine–European Union Association Agreement.[23]

References
  1. Mykoliuk 2013.
  2. Boersema 2001.
  3. Voren 2009b, p. 271.
  4. Moran 2010.
  5. Donskis 2009, p. 314; Mykoliuk 2013
  6. Voren 2013c; Clark 2014
  7. Skorokhod 2013; Wynnyckyj 1996
  8. VMU 2014.
  9. Glasgow Herald 1987; James 1985
  10. RCP 2014.
  11. Dobryanskaya 2010.
  12. Donskis 2009, p. 314.
  13. Lumans 2014.
  14. Lavrinenko 2015.
  15. Voren & Bloch 1989; Keukens & Voren 2007; Voren (1983, 1987, 2009a, 2009b); Voren (2010a, 2010b, 2010c, 2013a, 2013b, 2013c); Voren (2014, 2015a, 2015b)
  16. Voren (2002a, 2002b)
  17. Voren & Whiteford 2000; Tomov, Voren & Keukens 2006
  18. Voren 2006.
  19. Dobryanskaya 2010; Myagkova 2012; Voren 1992
  20. Rogers, Keukens & Voren 2006; Makhashvili & Voren 2013
  21. Gordon 2006.
  22. Voren (2015c, 2015d, 2015e)
  23. Dutch referendum a painful mistake, euromaidanpress, 6 April 2016

Sources

Books

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.