Robert van Voren

Robert van Voren
Native name Johannes Bax
Born (1959-07-25) July 25, 1959
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Residence Vilnius
Citizenship  Canada,  Netherlands,  Lithuania
Fields political science, psychiatry
Institutions
Alma mater Amsterdam University
Known for his Russian studies, human rights activism and participation in struggle against political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union
Notable awards from Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands for his work as a human rights activist
Website
robertvanvoren.com

Robert van Voren (publishing pseudonym of Johannes Baks,[1] Dutch: Johannes Bax,[2] born 7 July 1959, Montreal, Canada[3]) is a Dutch human rights activist[4] and political scientist.[5]

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 Global Initiative on Psychiatry.[7]

Biography

He was born on 7 July 1959, Montreal,[3] Quebec, Canada[8] and graduated from Amsterdam University in 1986.[9] In the 1980s, he worked at the Bukovsky Foundation based in Amsterdam[10] and since 1989 was the director of its successor, the Second World Center.[11] Since 1980, he had regularly visited the Soviet Union including Ukraine and collected information on repression of dissidents,[12] as well as smuggling Samizdat publications to the west. In 1986, he became Chief Executive of the Global Initiative on Psychiatry.[12] He is also a Honorary Fellow of the British Royal College of Psychiatrists and Honorary Member of the Ukrainian Psychiatric Association.[13] In 2005, he was knighted by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands for his work as a human rights activist.[13] He has a Lithuanian citizenship[14] since 11 February 2003[3] and lives in Vilnius.[15]

Robert van Voren has published over a dozen books.[9] His works cover political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union[16] and China[17] and reforms of mental health in Eastern Europe,[18] the former Soviet Union,[19] Ukraine,[20] Georgia.[21] Robert van Voren's contribution to reform of forensic psychiatry in states of the former Soviet Union is widely recognized.[22]

In 2015, he commented the Ukrainian crisis and the Russian military intervention in the Syrian Civil War.[23]

References

Sources

Books

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