Feedback In June 2025, ADC Memorial and the International Committee of the Indigenous Peoples of Russia have sent materials to the office of the UN Secretary-General as part of the preparation of the SG’s report on the implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action.
The Durban Declaration and Programme of Action is the United Nations global plan to combat racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance worldwide. It was adopted in 2001 and is not legally binding, but the participating countries have expressed their determination to combat racism. Among the proposed practical actions are an objective assessment of the colonization policies of many states in the past and present, recognition of the contribution of Africans to world culture, expanding the access of indigenous peoples to economic activities and improving their well-being, overcoming structural discrimination of the Roma population, etc.
One of the points of the Secretary General’s future report will be measures of restorative justice in relation to slavery, the slave trade, the transatlantic slave trade, colonialism, apartheid, genocide and tragedies of the past, as well as measures to overcome the long-term consequences of these events and processes and the ongoing manifestations of systemic racism.
ADC Memorial and ICIPR informed the UN about the signing by representatives of the indigenous peoples of the Russian Federation and Russian civil society of the Orcas Island Declaration: A Statement of Reconciliation and Respect (named after the meeting place – the territory of Lammi, the indigenous people of North America). This document was developed with the participation of representatives of indigenous peoples, activists of the Russian opposition, human rights defenders, experts and lawyers, based on the experience of other countries in overcoming the colonial past.
The Orcas Island Declaration calls on Russian society to recognize the mistakes of the past, to objectively and honestly assess the colonial policy that the state has pursued for several centuries against various peoples inhabiting the territories of modern Russia (primarily the most vulnerable small peoples), and to begin the reconciliation process based on the principles of international law, primarily on The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
The initiators of the Declaration have created a permanent platform for dialogue between representatives of the indigenous peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East and Russian civil society. The participants in the Declaration are aware that currently, under the conditions of a de facto dictatorship, residents of Russia cannot freely carry out their declared activities due to the risk of repression. However, they think it is time to shape the country’s future based on the principles set out in the Declaration.
The authors of the analytical material also drew the Secretary General’s attention to the fact that in the context of the war unleashed by Russia against Ukraine and the general persecution of dissidents, people with anti-war and anti-colonial positions, racism and xenophobia in Russia are turning into a state ideology. Chauvinistic, particularly anti-Ukrainian and anti-migrant rhetoric, has become mainstream in the state media and in public statements by government officials. The high-level support of movements and groups with xenophobic ideology and the delegation of the right to use violence to them is very alarming. There is reason to believe that these groups, at least in some regions of the Russian Federation, are acting by request of law enforcement agencies. These groups participated in racist incidents where people died, as well as in mass riots, in particular in the anti-Roma pogrom in Korkino, Chelyabinsk region (2023).