Robert van Voren (publishing pseudonym of Johannes Baks, nl, Johannes Bax, born 25 July 1959,

Montreal, Quebec Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple-pea ...

, Canada) is a

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

human rights activist A human rights defender or human rights activist is a person who, individually or with others, acts to promote or protect human rights. They can be journalists, environmentalists, whistleblowers, trade unionists, lawyers, teachers, housing campai ...

sovietologist Kremlinology is the study and analysis of the politics and policies of the Soviet Union while Sovietology is the study of politics and policies of both the Soviet Union and former communist states more generally. These two terms were synonymous unt ...

and

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the stu ...

. He is a professor of Soviet and post-Soviet studies in the

Ilia State University Ilia State University ISU ( Georgian: ილიას სახელმწიფო უნივერსიტეტი) was founded in 2006 as a result of a merger of six different academic institutions with long and varied histories. Current ...

Tbilisi Tbilisi ( ; ka, თბილისი ), in some languages still known by its pre-1936 name Tiflis ( ), is the Capital city, capital and the List of cities and towns in Georgia (country), largest city of Georgia (country), Georgia, lying on the ...

(

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

) and in the

Vytautas Magnus University Vytautas Magnus University (VMU) ( lt, Vytauto Didžiojo universitetas (VDU)) is a public university in Kaunas, Lithuania. The university was founded in 1922 during the interwar period as an alternate national university. Initially it was known ...

Kaunas Kaunas (; ; also see other names) is the second-largest city in Lithuania after Vilnius and an important centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaunas was the largest city and the centre of a county in the Duchy of Trakai ...

(

Lithuania Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...

) 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

in Kaunas, Lithuania.

Biography

He was born on 7 July 1959,

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

, Canada and graduated from

Amsterdam University The University of Amsterdam (abbreviated as UvA, nl, Universiteit van Amsterdam) is a public research university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The UvA is one of two large, publicly funded research universities in the city, the other being ...

in 1986. In the 1980s, he worked at the Bukovsky Foundation based in Amsterdam and since 1989 was the director of its successor, the Second World Center. Since 1980, he had regularly visited the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

including

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

and collected information on repression of dissidents, as well as smuggling

Samizdat Samizdat (russian: самиздат, lit=self-publishing, links=no) was a form of dissident activity across the Eastern Bloc in which individuals reproduced censored and underground makeshift publications, often by hand, and passed the document ...

publications to the west. In 1986, he became Chief Executive of the Global Initiative on Psychiatry. He is also a Honorary Fellow of the British

Royal College of Psychiatrists The Royal College of Psychiatrists is the main professional organisation of psychiatrists in the United Kingdom, and is responsible for representing psychiatrists, for psychiatric research and for providing public information about mental health ...

and Honorary Member of the Ukrainian Psychiatric Association. In 2005, he was knighted by

Queen Beatrix Beatrix (Beatrix Wilhelmina Armgard, ; born 31 January 1938) is a member of the Dutch royal house who reigned as Queen of the Netherlands from 1980 until her abdication in 2013. Beatrix is the eldest daughter of Queen Juliana and her husband ...

of the Netherlands for his work as a human rights activist. He has a Lithuanian citizenship since 11 February 2003 and lives in

Vilnius Vilnius ( , ; see also other names) is the capital and largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the municipality of Vilnius). The population of Vilnius's functional urb ...

. Robert van Voren has published over a dozen books. His works cover

political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union There was systematic political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union, based on the interpretation of political opposition or dissent as a psychiatric problem. It was called "psychopathological mechanisms" of dissent. During the leadership ...

and

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

and reforms of mental health in

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russ ...

, the former Soviet Union,

. Robert van Voren's contribution to reform of forensic psychiatry in states of the former Soviet Union is widely recognized. Van Voren also published widely on the theme of the Holocaust in Lithuania. In 2015, he commented the

Russo-Ukrainian War The Russo-Ukrainian War; uk, російсько-українська війна, rosiisko-ukrainska viina. has been ongoing between Russia (alongside Russian separatist forces in Donbas, Russian separatists in Ukraine) and Ukraine since Feb ...

and the

Russian military intervention in the Syrian Civil War {{Infobox military conflict , partof = the foreign involvement in the Syrian civil war, and the military intervention against ISIL , image = , image_size = , border = , caption = To ...

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

References

Sources

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Books

* * * * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Voren, Robert van 1959 births Living people Writers from Montreal Canadian people of Dutch descent Canadian emigrants to the Netherlands University of Amsterdam alumni Global Initiative on Psychiatry Fellows of the Royal College of Psychiatrists Psychiatry academics Reformers Dutch political scientists Dutch political writers Dutch medical writers Dutch non-fiction writers Dutch male writers Writers about Russia Writers about the Soviet Union 20th-century Dutch writers 21st-century Dutch writers Dutch political activists Dutch human rights activists Soviet psychiatric abuse whistleblowers Vytautas Magnus University faculty Ilia State University faculty Russian studies scholars Knights of the Order of Orange-Nassau 20th-century Canadian male writers Male non-fiction writers 20th-century pseudonymous writers 21st-century pseudonymous writers