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Hi, this is Michelle. Years before its full-blown invasion of Ukraine and sweeping crackdown on dissent, Russia was already hinting at some of the great lengths it would go to to dissuade its detractors.

One German researcher who was banned from Russia for 50 years after giving a UN speech on its treatment of Indigenous groups wants to expose Moscow’s tactics. To be more precise, he wants the UN’s Human Rights Committee, the custodian of the foundational covenant on civil and political rights, to declare the ban a rights violation.

While unlikely he will be able to set foot on Russian soil again, it may set a precedent for other countries that may want to retaliate against their critics in the future.
photo journaliste

Michelle Langrand

20.09.2024

On our radar
Photo article

Nenet woman at the entrance of a tent in the Yar-Sale district, Yamal, Northwest Siberia, Russia, April 2016. (Keystone/Nature Picture Library/Eric Baccega)

In November 2018, Johannes Rohr spoke at a United Nations forum in Geneva, denouncing Russia’s liquid natural gas project in the Yamal peninsula, in the north. He detailed how indigenous peoples’ lands were being militarised and exploited without their free, prior and informed consent, with European and Chinese firms investing billions of dollars in the venture. Access to the area, he noted, was tightly controlled by Russia’s FSB.

Rohr, a veteran German researcher on Indigenous rights in Russia, had spent 25 years documenting abuses. His brief, five-minute speech clearly hit a nerve. Weeks later, Rohr flew to Moscow with his visa on hand, like he had done so many times since he started working on the Indigenous peoples of Siberia and the far east in the mid-1990s. This time, he was detained at passport control and held for several hours. He recalls the FSB handing him a document, branding him “a danger to national security” and banning him from entering the country until 2069 on his 100th birthday. Rohr was immediately deported back to Germany.

Read the full story on Geneva Solutions.

Here's what else is happening

Reason for hope
Photo article

The ozone layer in the earth's stratosphere absorbs most of the ultraviolet radiation reaching the earth from the sun. (WMO)

Ozone layer on the mend despite volcano eruption, UN weather body says. The world's ozone layer is on track to making a long-term recovery despite the impact of a major volcanic eruption on the Antarctic ozone hole in 2023, according to the World Meteorological Organization, as efforts to phase-out ozone depleting substances continue to show signs of taking effect.

"The ozone layer, once an ailing patient, is on the road to recovery," UN secretary general António Guterres said in a statement on Tuesday, which also marked World Ozone Day celebrating the 1985 treaty that led to the phase out of substances that deplete the crucial layer of the world's stratosphere. “At a time when multilateralism is under severe strain, the Montreal Protocol to help protect the ozone layer stands out as a powerful symbol of hope.”

Reuters (EN)

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