Today marked two years since the ABC's Four Corners report on Don Dale, the notorious youth detention centre in the Northern Territory, which saw a series of torture-like abuses of mostly Aboriginal children. One of the most infamous cases was the repeated abuse of then 13-year old Aboriginal boy, Dylan Voller, who was later placed in a 'restraint chair' and covered with a 'spit hood', reminiscent of tactics used at Guantanamo Bay.
Since the Four Corners program, there has been a Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory. That Commission reported last November without any charges being laid against any of the perpetrators of the abuses at Don Dale, despite finding 'shocking and systemic failures over many years in the youth prison system that were ignored at the highest levels of government.' In the last few months, there has been a string of rooftop protests by inmates at Don Dale, and the centre has been deemed still 'not fit for purpose', 'overcrowded and understaffed', despite the Royal Commission.
Below, Dylan Voller watches the original, harrowing Four Corners program, 2 years after the original broadcast caused widespread outrage. The program included graphic footage of Voller being abused and assaulted. Today's event took place at The Settlement community centre in Redfern where speakers and performers responded to ongoing violence against Aboriginal people in custody. Also in attendance was the family of David Dungay, who died in Long Bay Jail after being restrained and sedated by prison officers and whose death is the subject of a coronial inquest, which today was postponed for another 12 months.
*click on image for full screen view