Please click the link below to read a joint press release by RAIPON, the Russian
Association of Indigenous Peoples and the North and IWGIA regarding the
consideration of Russia under the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), a
peer-review mechanism of the UN Human Rights Council on 4 February
2009.

Press Release

In late 2008, RAIPON and IWGIA had jointly submitted a shadow report to the UPR, i.a. pointing to the disturbing fact, that the Russian national report to the UPR does not even once mention the word "indigenous". This shadow report followed up on the shadow report to the UN Committee on
the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) submitted earlier in 2008. In August 2008, CERD had adopted a set of strong recommendations to Russia, including the recommendation to cease support for the giant Evenkiiskaya hydroelectric dam on the Lower Tunguska river in Krasnoyarsk region, which threatens to displace thousands, many of them indigenous Evenks. 

The IWGIA is happy that at the UPR, the representative of Denmark has recalled the CERD recommendations and made the formal recommendations to Russia to implement them. Russia has responded by saying that they have developed a national plan for the implementation of the CERD recommendations and that they will present their first midterm report on that plan by the end of 2009.

Please find more information including links to relevant documents at http://www.iwgia.org/sw33170.asp

Video archives of the session are available at http://www.un.org/webcast/unhrc/archive.asp?go=090204