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Commissioner for Human Rights
Commissioner for Human Rights
@commissionerHR@mastodon.social  ·  activity timestamp 3 weeks ago
Today is Human Rights Day, but Human Rights Day 2025 is not a normal anniversary. This is an extraordinarily consequential year. It's a year when we are confronted with risks to the very future of the human rights protection system. To this extraordinary achievement, so carefully built up in the years since the Second World War. What do I mean in practice? Well, perhaps above all, in my mind, because of my work and my mandate right now, is the survival of a free, thriving Ukraine, that is strongly embedded in commitment to the respect and the protection of human rights. It is so important. As Ukraine continues to face the Russian aggression, that we give it every possible human rights support, and that we work with it to embed human rights in whatever pathways to peace will emerge. And what does that mean in practice? All I am saying is that we have to keep people at the heart of the path to peace. The pursuit of peace, the methods of reaching peace, the delivery of peace must always be about honouring the human dignity of every last man, woman and child of that country. So for me at least, that is an uppermost thought as I face into this new year and the tasks that lie ahead in the pursuit of human rights. Thank you. Michael O'Flaherty