"She Is Not a Terrorist. She Is Not Forgotten": Indigenous Insider on Daria Egereva
Updated: 1 day ago
Award-winning journalist Brandi Morin representing the Cree and Iroquois peoples and having French roots has published an emotional piece on Daria Egereva in her Indigenous Insider newsletter. The headline says it all: "Daria Egereva is still in a Moscow detention cell. And now she's also a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize."
Morin reminds readers that the nomination was submitted by S. James Anaya, former UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and Øyvind Ravna, law professor at UiT The Arctic University of Norway. Ravna said the goal was to draw the world's eyes to Indigenous peoples fighting climate change and to what he called "the suppression of opposition in Russian civil society."
"Sit with that for a second. A woman the Kremlin locked up as a terrorist is now being put forward for the prize given to people who've done the most for peace on earth. It tells you everything you need to know about who's actually in the wrong here."
The charges still don't make sense
Egereva and her co-defendant, human rights advocate Natalia Leongardt, were detained on December 17, 2025, part of a coordinated FSB operation that hit at least seventeen other Indigenous leaders across Russia's eleven time zones. Egereva had just returned from COP30.
The charge: participation in a "terrorist organization" — Aborigen Forum, an informal network of Indigenous advocates and experts. If convicted, both women face up to twenty years in prison.
At an April bail hearing, Daria told the court:
"I am not familiar with and do not know this organisation."
Natalia said much the same in her own words.
The court didn't care. Their detention has been extended again and again — February, March, April, and most recently after a June 11 hearing so closed that diplomats from Germany, Norway, Sweden, and Poland weren't even let in the building.
The world is not staying quiet
More than 100 human rights and environmental organizations have signed a joint statement demanding their immediate, unconditional release. UN Special Rapporteurs have written directly to the Russian government. Kate Finn of the Tallgrass Institute put it this way: their work is "completely legitimate, completely within regular diplomatic channels."
"It is not terrorism. It has never been terrorism. It is Indigenous women doing what Indigenous women have always done — showing up, speaking up, and refusing to disappear."
Why this matters beyond one case
"It's about what happens when a government decides that defending your land, your language, your people's future is a crime worth twenty years. It's about the message that sends to every Indigenous activist watching from Siberia to the Amazon to the Arctic: speak, and we will come for you."
"Enough. Enough of criminalizing survival. Enough of calling advocacy 'extremism.' Enough of governments hiding behind closed courtrooms because they know the world is watching and they don't like what it sees."
"You are not a terrorist. You are not forgotten"
Morin ends with a personal message to Daria:
"Daria, if you ever get to read this: thank you. Thank you for standing up for your people when it would have been so much easier to stay quiet. I think of your children waiting for you to come home, and I think of every Indigenous person watching your case and drawing courage from it instead of fear. You are not a terrorist. You are not forgotten. I am thankful for you, sister. Hold on. We're not going anywhere."
What's next
The Nobel Committee will announce this year's laureate on October 9.
"Whether or not her name is called, the nomination itself is already a verdict — delivered by the international community, over the heads of a government that tried to silence her."
Sevr Nuu
Free Daria and Natalia
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