Australia’s prime minister has ordered a sweeping investigation into claims that teenagers were abused at a juvenile detention centre in the country’s north.
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It prompted an appalled Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to order an inquiry into the treatment of young inmates.
Other footage, obtained by the ABC’s Four Corners programme, showed Mr Voller – then aged 13 and 14 – repeatedly being stripped naked, bound and thrown across the prison corridor.
Turnbull added: “There are many issues of concern here and we will get to the bottom of it and we will appoint a very thorough, meticulous examiner of this”. “Why was this abuse, this mistreatment, unrevealed for so long?”
In a 2014 incident, officials said guards used tear gas to subdue six teens who had staged a riot. One of the detainees can be heard saying he can’t breathe.
Voller is eligible for parole and there are calls for him to be released.
“Let’s stop use of the spit masks until we take advice”, he said, referring to the kind of hood that was placed on the boy in the footage, covering his neck and head.
“These are unconscionable practices”, Gillian Triggs, president of the Australian Human Rights Commission, an independent government agency that polices human rights violations, told The Washington Post.
“Royal commissions that go on for years and years and years in my experience are disappointing so what we’re going to do – this will be clearly focused on the Northern Territory, will be focused on the failings of the youth detention system there”.
Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion said the footage was particularly shocking because the guards involved appeared cavalier about their actions.
“We need to get all the facts out as swiftly as we can”, said the PM.
After the comments were widely circulated on Twitter in the wake of the “Four Corners” report, Giles told Mix 104.9 FM in Darwin that he was “vent(ing) my frustration”.
“Any government that enacts policies created to harm children and enables a culture of brutalisation and cover-ups, surrenders its right to govern”, said spokesman John Paterson.
Mr Martin will also look at whether two reports about the abuse at Don Dale in January and August 2015 were sufficiently considered and whether more should have been done by the NT government.
He was former Chief Justice of the Northern Territory, a Justice of the Supreme Court of South Australia and served as a Justice of the Supreme Court of Western Australia as well being a Director of Public Prosecutions of the Commonwealth.
On Tuesday afternoon, the NT’s Chief Minister Adam Giles announced he had removed John Elferink as Corrections Minister, installing himself in the role. He also thanked his legal team, North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency and his family for “all the support through the hard times“.
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“There is no cover-up”.
