Australia PM calls investigation into juvenile ‘torture’
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Australia’s prime minister has called a royal commission after a report showed prison guards assaulting teenage boys in juvenile detention.
The Four Corners program showed footage of teenage offenders stripped naked, assaulted and tear gassed.
One of the boys was hooded and cuffed to a mechanical restraint chair wearing a “spit hood”.
The report raised questions about an institutionalised culture of abuse at Northern Territory corrections centres.
‘Shocked and appalled’
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the treatment of youths by the Northern Territory corrections system needed a thorough enquiry.
“Like all Australians, I have been deeply shocked, shocked and appalled, by the images of mistreatment at the Don Dale centre,” Mr Turnbull said.
“We will be establishing a royal commission into these events, into this centre; we intend to do so jointly with the Northern Territory government.
“We will get to the bottom of what happened here … we want to know why there were inquiries into this centre which did not turn up the evidence and the information that we saw on Four Corners last night.”
What the program showed
- Much of the program focused on treatment of a boy who was assaulted, stripped naked and kept in solitary confinement between 2010 and 2012, when he was aged between 13 and 14.
- At one stage the boy was transferred to an adult prison and strapped to a restraint chair while wearing a hood for almost two hours
- The boy was also among a group of six children who were tear gassed at the Don Dale centre in 2014
- The Northern Territory corrections system has reportedly been plagued by accusations of mistreatment of offenders and a run of escapes from custody
‘Serious questions’
The Northern Territory’s chief minister, Adam Giles, said he was “shocked and disgusted” and also called for a royal commission.
“A community is judged by the way it treats its children and serious questions were raised by the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corp) tonight,” Mr Giles said.
Mr Giles also reiterated his support for the staff working in the Northern Territory’s correctional institutions.
“They have a challenging and difficult job, one that not many people wish to do,” he said.
“To those officers I want to say, you have my full support for the work that you do in upholding our laws.”
‘What we need’
Barrister John Lawrence compared the treatment of the children to Guantanamo Bay.
“We’re talking about kids that are being shackled with handcuffs on their ankles, their wrists, their waist areas. They’re being shackled to chairs,” he told Four Corners.
“This is actually happening in Australia in 2016.”
The president of the Australian Human Rights Commission, Gillian Triggs, praised the decision to investigate mistreatment at the juvenile detention centres.
“I think for the prime minister to respond so quickly with the idea of a royal commission, and possibly an interim report, is exactly what we need,” Prof. Triggs said.
“If one of us were to have been found to have treated our children in this way we would probably be charged with a criminal offence and the children taken away from us.”
