Ten United Nations officials have decided to do something that probably won't work: politely ask Russia to release two Indigenous climate advocates who have been sitting in jail for six months on terrorism charges. The letter, sent in April and made public last week, urges Moscow to free Daria Egereva and Natalia Leongardt ahead of a key court hearing this Thursday in Moscow. Spoiler alert: Russian officials have not yet responded.
Egereva, an Indigenous Selkup from Russia and co-chair of the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change, was arrested on December 17 with Leongardt, a former U.N. intern in Geneva, just weeks after Egereva returned from the COP30 climate conference. The charges? Participating in a terrorist group, which apparently means having once been involved with the Aborigen Forum, an informal Indigenous advocacy network that Russia shut down two years ago. U.N. experts suspect the arrests might have more to do with Egereva's pesky habit of attending U.N. meetings and speaking up for Indigenous rights.
The letter, signed by U.N. special rapporteurs for the environment, Indigenous peoples, and human rights, demands immediate release and dropping of all charges. Egereva and Leongardt could face up to 20 years in prison. Their detention has drawn international condemnation, with over 100 organizations calling for their release at April's U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York.
Egereva's colleagues are particularly worried because she was supposed to be in Germany this week for the Bonn Climate Change Conference. Instead, she's in a Russian jail, denied regular phone calls and visits with her husband and children. The International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change has taken the unprecedented step of voting to extend her term as co-chair until her release - a symbolic move that says, "We'd rather have an absentee co-chair than let Russia pick our leaders."
Kate Finn, a citizen of the Osage Nation and executive director of the Tallgrass Institute, summed it up: "The work they've been doing is completely legitimate, completely within regular diplomatic channels. It's being framed by the Russian government as terrorist activity, but it's activity that Indigenous women do every day for the U.N. system these days." Because apparently, advocating for climate justice is now a terrorist act in Russia.