Ten U.N. officials are calling on Russia to immediately release Daria Egereva, an Indigenous international climate advocate, and her colleague Natalia Leongardt, both of whom have been jailed for six months on terrorism charges, ahead of a key court hearing this week.
Egereva, who is Indigenous Selkup from Russia, is co-chair of the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change, which represents Indigenous peoples’ perspectives at United Nations gatherings. Russian authorities arrested her and Leongardt on December 17, just weeks after Egereva returned from the COP30 climate conference. Leongardt, a former intern at the U.N. headquarters in Geneva, has spent her career working on educational programs for Indigenous peoples in Russia.
The two face accusations of participating in a terrorist group due to their past involvement in the Aborigen Forum, an informal network of Indigenous advocates that the Russian government shut down two years ago. But U.N. experts say they’re concerned the arrest... Read more
