EUMANS and the Associazione Luca Coscioni mourn the death of Aycke Smook, President of Right to Die Europe.
EUMANS and the Associazione Luca Coscion are saddened by the death of Aycke Smook, President of the Right to Die Society Europe. Our hearts go out to his family and friends. We thank him for his service leading the network of organisations active in the protection of the right to die, he was one of the first to join EUMANS. A few days before the Citizens Summit in Gdansk he shared his support to our activities with a donation, apologizing for missing the opportunity to be with us due to his condition. We will continue our common struggle for the recognition of the right to die as a human right also on his behalf. May he rest in peace.
Aycke Smook died in Bergen aan Zee on March 6, 2023. Smook worked for many years as a surgeon-oncologist at Medical Center Alkmaar (MCA) and was active as a SCEN (Support and Consultation Euthanasia Netherlands) physician for more than seventeen years. In the 1990s he was a member of the board of directors of NVVE. Throughout these years Smook has been extremely active in the field of self-chosen end-of-life and the right to die. In 1993, Smook founded Right to Die Europe (RtD-E), initially as the European division of the World Federation of Right to Die Societies (WFRtDS). Later, RtD-E became an independent organization of which he served as president for a long time. He also served as president of WFRtDS for several years. He succeeded in getting RtD-E recognized as an NGO with participatory status with the Council of Europe and as a member of the Appeal Committee of the NGO Conference. Smook was 84 years old.