On the occasion of Roma Resistance Day, 16 May, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Michael O’Flaherty, delivered the following video message at the Roma Rights Network meeting, organised in Vienna on 15 and 16 May 2025:
Hello, thank you very much for inviting me to join with you on this day. I appreciate that you have allowed me to engage by means of a short video. Roma Resistance Day I understand to be a day with many dimensions.
In the first place, it is a day of remembrance. It is a day where we do honour to the memory of those heroic people who stood up against the Nazi tyrants and said, “Enough!”. We honour them, we remember them and we seek to learn from their extraordinary courage.
But beyond remembrance, today is also one of acknowledgement. On Roma Resistance Day, we acknowledge all of the extraordinary work that has been and continues to be done by Roma organisations in standing up for human rights. I acknowledge with the deepest of respect the work of the European Roma Rights Centre, but of all of the many other organisations that are present in this event and are active right across the continent.
Beyond acknowledgement, today is a day of recommitting to unity. We will only change our societies, we will only deliver on respecting the human rights of Roma people when we are united. And I suggest we can unite strongly together around those core human rights principles to which all of our states have committed themselves.
I think that this concept of unity also has within it an element of sustainability. We cannot keep relying on the same small number of people who give of themselves endlessly. We have to embed the efforts so that they have that institutional quality that guarantees they can survive when those who lead them have to move on.
I am also aware, as I talk about unity and survival, that we are in very difficult times. I think of the extent to which human rights defenders in general are under extreme pressure in far too many of our societies, and those working on the human rights of Roma often, in particular, are exposed to repressive measures.
I think of the extent to which the racism against Roma is embedded in our societies, and I am very aware that we will only make serious progress in standing up for the human rights of Roma when we challenge, engage and deal with that racism in our societies.
But the final element of Roma Resistance Day that I have very much in mind today is that it is a day of solidarity, and it is in that spirit that I express to you my firm, my solid solidarity for us to go together in seeking to build a better world.
Thank you.