In a video message, Václav Havel—poet, playwright, and the first president of the Czech Republic—celebrates the rise of democracies around the world after the fall of the Soviet Union. However, he cautions that dictatorships and quasi-dictatorships are still thriving across the globe. He stresses the need for human rights defenders to come together, especially at conferences like the Oslo Freedom Forum, to combat authoritarianism in all its forms.