On 9 June, staff members of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Russia held a regular meeting with participants to the UN Russian Speaking Indigenous Fellowship Programme. This year the Office hosted guests from the Association of Indigenous people of the North, Siberia and Far East of the Russian Federation, selected by the OHCHR.

The range of the issued discussed has been largely extended: most subjects were proposed by fellows themselves. They mentioned the interaction with the regional human rights commissioners; generalization of the information about individual and group complaints of indigenous people considered by the Russia’s High Commissioner, about measures taken to restore their violated rights and freedoms; problems of indigenous people faced in the attempts to protect their rights; legislative regulation of rights of indigenous people of the North, Siberia and Far East to healthy environment and use of natural resources.

The indigenous human rights defenders got acquainted with the results of the monitoring conducted by regional commissioners for indigenous people’s rights. There was a video conference with the Commissioner for Indigenous People’s Rights in Krasnoyarsk Territory, Semyon Palchin. The fellows asked the Commissioner many practical questions related to the human rights mechanisms.