Suspended prison sentence demanded against former lecturer Laurens Buijs
Former UvA lecturer Laurens Buijs appeared in court on Tuesday afternoon for making threats against, among others, UvA lecturers and hospital staff, NRC reports. The former UvA whistleblower Buijs has been diagnosed with a bipolar disorder.
The list of colleagues, journalists and academics that 42-year-old Laurens Buijs threatened after leaving the University of Amsterdam (UvA) is extensive. Fellow UvA lecturer Jan Willem Duyvendak was labelled a “paedophilic psychopath,” virologist Marion Koopmans a “genocidal Nazi whore,” and following Buijs’s call to “pedo-hunters,” a stone was thrown through journalist Chris Klomp’s window by unknown perpetrators. On Tuesday afternoon, Buijs appeared in court on charges of insult, defamation, slander, incitement and doxing, NRC reports.
The former sociology lecturer was arrested earlier this year after posting names and photos of UvA and OLVG hospital staff on Facebook, AD reported. Referring to former colleagues, including sociology professor Duyvendak – with whom Buijs once co-authored a book – he wrote: “If you can do anything to get these creeps, do it.”
During the trial, Buijs expressed deep remorse for his actions. “It was the climax of a period when I wasn’t doing well,” he said. In April 2023, the UvA suspended Buijs, leading to a lengthy legal dispute. The university placed him on leave after he had threatened several colleagues. Since then, Buijs described himself, in his own words on Tuesday afternoon, as “a fallen, embittered man who wanted to hurt the people who had hurt him as much as possible.”
‘Radical woke culture’
In January 2023, a public debate arose at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) over an opinion piece by Buijs in Folia. In the article, he claimed that there was “a radical woke culture” at the UvA. The piece sparked intense online reactions, including from UvA students. Buijs soon became a figurehead of the right-wing anti-woke movement, appearing on platforms such as PowNews, Ongehoord Nederland, and the YouTube channel of Forum for Democracy.
The UvA treated Buijs’s article as a whistleblower report and set up an investigative committee. The “Stolker Committee” examined the alleged threats to academic freedom and the institutional misconduct Buijs had reported. In June 2023, the committee concluded that there had been no wrongdoing at the UvA. According to the university, Buijs’s eventual departure in 2024 was unrelated to the report, but rather to the threats he had made against colleagues.
Bipolar
Buijs has been diagnosed with a bipolar disorder, which partly influenced his behaviour. Over the past year, he was required to undergo treatment at a mental health institution. The former lecturer says he fluctuates between episodes of intense anger and deep remorse. He is now taking antipsychotic medication, has deleted his social media accounts, and stopped his frequent cannabis use. According to him, the chapter involving the UvA and the anti-woke movement is now over. “The conspiracy booklet is closed,” Buijs said in court on Tuesday afternoon.
The Public Prosecution Service is demanding a prison sentence equal to the 88 days he has already served, a community service order of sixty hours, and a suspended prison sentence of two months. Buijs’s lawyer is arguing for a fully suspended sentence. The verdict will be delivered on Tuesday, 4 November.
