Last week indigenous man Cameron Doomageee died one hour after being arrested for public drunkeness on Palm Island, off the coast of Townsville, QLD, Aust. His death sparked a riot that saw the PI police station burnt to the ground and 19 arrested.
On the day of his funeral, December 11, about 2000 people in Brisbane turned out for a National day of Action against black deaths in custody.
Numerous speakers gave condolences to the Doomagee family and talked about the continuing sturggles of the community to deal with racism and police harrassment, with a show of hands revealing about half the crowd had been victims of police harrassment or violence. All speakers confirmed the disbeleif in establishemnt claims that Doomagee's death was an accident. Many stories of the deaths of friends and relatives in custody were told. Speakers made a call to the non-indigenous comunity to support their demand for justice and reject the Howard government's attempts at a new protectionism in the form of "shared responsibility" Uncle Ray, from Sydney's Redfern indigneous commuinity called for the re-opening of the TJ Hickey case, a 17 year old indigenous youth who died in February 2004 after being chased by police, sparking riots in Redfern in Sydney.
Doomagee's cousin Alex spoke to the rally drawing attention to the statements of Murrandoo Yanner and highlighting the fact that so-called rioters are in reality resistance fighters agaisnt the racism and violence that the Australain justice system shows indigenous people. He said "we are not going to let you get away with what you did". Brisbane supporters held a minutes silence in respect for the grief of the Palm Island Comunity before marching to Musgrave Park.
Queensland has the worst record for the deaths of indigenous people in police custody, with 19 deaths in 2003 (Aust. Institute of Criminology).
The Radical Radio Collective from Community Radio 4ZzZ102.1fm in Brisbane was there to recorded some of the speakers.
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