Robert van Voren | |
---|---|
Johannes Bax | |
Born | Montreal, Quebec, Canada | July 25, 1959
Citizenship | Canada, Netherlands, Lithuania |
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 |
Awards | from Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands for his work as a human rights activist; Pardes Humanitarian Prize in Mental Health, 2022. |
Scientific career | |
Fields | political science, psychiatry |
Institutions |
|
Website | robertvanvoren |
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]
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 a visiting professor at University of Silezia, Katowice, Poland. He is also 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.
Graduated from the Marnix Gymnasium in Rotterdam in 1979, and in 1986 achieved a master's degree at the University of Amsterdam in Modern and Theoretical History with a specialization in Soviet History with Russian language. Robert van Voren defended his PhD in Political Sciences at Kaunas Vytautas Magnus University in October, 2010. [7]
From 1978 to 1987, Robert van Voren worked as a Secretary of the Podrabniek Fund in The Netherlands. 1978-1989 he was an Associate of the Bukovsky Foundation in Amsterdam, where he also became a Board Member in 1988-1989.
He was a founding member of the International Association on the Political Abuse of Psychiatry (IAPUP) in 1980.
Since 1980, he also travelled frequently to the USSR to meet with dissidents and relatives of political prisoners. On average, he would make four trips per year. The goal was to deliver humanitarian aid, collect evidence on human rights violations and smuggle samizdat out of the country. He was arrested in 1983, but still managed to continue traveling to the USSR until its disintegration. [8]
Since 1986, Robert van Voren has been the Secretary-General of the International Association on the Political Use of Psychiatry (renamed in 1991 into Geneva Initiative on Psychiatry, in 2005 into the Global Initiative on Psychiatry, and to Human Rights in Mental Health-FGIP in 2014).
Between 1991 and 1997, he worked as a Coordinator of Western Aid to Psychiatry of the Ukrainian Ministry of Health, and in during 1994-1997 he was the Permanent Representative of Ukraine in the Benelux for Humanitarian Affairs. Since 1994, Robert van Voren has been the Board Member of the Kyiv Rehabilitation Center for Victims of Totalitarianism and Civil War. In 1994, he also founded the Ukrainian Information Center in the Netherlands, where he also became a Board Member from 1997 to 1998.
1996-1997 he was also a Board Member of the Second World Center. From 1996 to 1999 he was among the members of the Committee on Mental Health of the Netherlands International Health Platform.
Between 1996 and 2010 he also worked as a Secretary/Treasurer of the publishing house "Sphere" in Kyiv, Ukraine.
Since 2010, Robert van Voren is the Patron of the Gladys School for Community Health Work and Development in the Gampaha District, Sri Lanka.
From 2011 to 2013, he was the Chairman of the Board of the Themis Foundation for Prison Reform, and from 2013 to 2017 he was the Director there.
Between 2013 and 2015, he was a Member of the Board of the Netwerk International Mental Health in The Netherlands as well as the Vice-President for Europe at the World Federation for Mental Health.
Robert van Voren has been a Member of the Board of Advisors of the Charity "Rights in Russia" in the United Kingdom since 2013. Since 2014, he has been the Chairman of the Board of the "Foundation to Preserve History of Maidan" in Kyiv, and since 2015 - a Patron of the BEARR Trust, United Kingdom.
From 2015 to 2017, Robert van Voren was the Vice President of the World Federation for Mental Health (WFMH) for constituency development, and the Chairman of the Human Rights and Ethics Committee of the WFMH. From 2017 to 2020, he was in the board of the World Federation for Mental Health, and since 2016, he has been on the board of the Penal Reform International (PRI) in the United Kingdom.
In addition, Robert van Voren has been active in academic field – as a professor, as a publishing scientist, and as a manager of different academic departments in various universities.
In 2022, Robert van Voren was awarded the Pardes Humanitarian Prize in Mental Health. [9]
Sluggish schizophrenia or slow progressive schizophrenia was a diagnostic category used in the Soviet Union to describe what was claimed to be a form of schizophrenia characterized by a slowly progressive course; it was diagnosed even in patients who showed no symptoms of schizophrenia or other psychotic disorders, on the assumption that these symptoms would appear later. It was developed in the 1960s by Soviet psychiatrist Andrei Snezhnevsky and his colleagues, and was used exclusively in the USSR and several Eastern Bloc countries, until the fall of Communism starting in 1989. The diagnosis has long been discredited because of its scientific inadequacy and its use as a means of confining dissenters. It has never been used or recognized outside of the Eastern Bloc, or by international organizations such as the World Health Organization. It is considered a prime example of the political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union.
Petro Grigorenko or Petro Hryhorovych Hryhorenko was a high-ranking Soviet Army commander of Ukrainian descent, who in his fifties became a dissident and a writer, one of the founders of the human rights movement 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.
Viktor Aleksandrovich Nekipelov was a Soviet Russian poet, writer, Soviet dissident, and a member of the Moscow Helsinki Group. He spent about nine years in prison for his participation in the Moscow Helsinki Group.
The Serbsky State Scientific Center for Social and Forensic Psychiatry is a psychiatric hospital and Russia's main center of forensic psychiatry. In the past, the institution was called the Serbsky Institute.
Valery Yakovlevich Tarsis was a Ukrainian writer, literary critic, and translator. He was highly critical of the communist regime.
Yuri Lvovich Nuller was a Soviet and Russian psychiatrist and professor. He spent many years investigating the problem of anxiety.
Andrei Snezhnevsky was a Soviet psychiatrist whose name was lent to the unbridled broadening of the diagnostic borders of schizophrenia in the Soviet Union, the key architect of the Soviet concept of sluggish schizophrenia, the inventor of the term "sluggish schizophrenia", an embodier of history of repressive psychiatry, and a direct participant in psychiatric repression against dissidents.
Anatoly Ivanovich Koryagin is a psychiatrist and Soviet dissident. He holds a Candidate of Science degree. Along with others, he exposed political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union. He pointed out Russia constructed psychiatric prisons to punish dissidents.
Political abuse of psychiatry, also known as punitive psychiatry, refers to the misuse of psychiatric diagnosis, detention, and treatment to suppress individual or group human rights in society. This abuse involves the deliberate psychiatric diagnosis of individuals who require neither psychiatric restraint nor treatment, often for political purposes.
Semen Fisheliovych Hluzman is a Ukrainian psychiatrist and human rights activist.
Global Initiative on Psychiatry (GIP) is an international foundation for mental health reform which took part in the campaign against the political abuse of psychiatry in the USSR. The organization is of NGO type.
Political abuse of psychiatry implies a misuse of psychiatric diagnosis, detention and treatment for the purposes of obstructing the fundamental human rights of certain groups and individuals in a society. In other words, abuse of psychiatry including one for political purposes is the deliberate action of getting citizens certified, who, because of their mental condition, need neither psychiatric restraint nor psychiatric treatment. Psychiatrists have been involved in human rights abuses in states across the world when the definitions of mental disease were expanded to include political disobedience. As scholars have long argued, governmental and medical institutions code menaces to authority as mental diseases during political disturbances. Nowadays, in many countries, political prisoners are sometimes confined and abused in mental institutions. Psychiatric confinement of sane people is uniformly considered a particularly pernicious form of repression.
Mental health in Russia is covered by a law, known under its official name—the Law of the Russian Federation "On Psychiatric Care and Guarantees of Citizens' Rights during Its Provision", which is the basic legal act that regulates psychiatric care in the Russian Federation and applies not only to persons with mental disorders but all citizens. A notable exception of this rule is those vested with parliamentary or judicial immunity. Providing psychiatric care is regulated by a special law regarding guarantees of citizens' rights.
In the Soviet Union, systematic political abuse of psychiatry took place and was based on the interpretation of political dissent as a psychiatric problem. It was called "psychopathological mechanisms" of dissent.
In the Soviet Union, a systematic political abuse of psychiatry took place and was based on the interpretation of political dissent as a psychiatric problem. It was called "psychopathological mechanisms" of dissent.
Campaign Against Psychiatric Abuse was a group that was founded by Soviet dissident Viktor Fainberg in April 1975 and participated in the struggle against political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union from 1975 to 1988.
The Working Commission to Investigate the Use of Psychiatry for Political Purposes was an offshoot of the Moscow Helsinki Group and a key source of information on psychiatric repression in the Soviet Union.
The Andrei Sakharov Research Center for Democratic Development is a university think tank which encompasses academic events, publications and archival holdings. The Center was founded in December 2017 at the Vytautas Magnus University (VMU).
Marina Voikhanskaya is a Soviet-British psychiatrist who opposed the detention of patients who were committed to Soviet psychiatric hospitals for their beliefs, and not for mental health reasons. She migrated to the UK in 1975 and campaigned against the abuse of psychiatry for political purposes and for the release of her son Misha from the Soviet Union. She lives in Cambridge, UK.
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