Svetlana Sterlin, a Brisbane poet, has won the 2023 Helen Anne Bell Poetry Bequest Award for her book-length unpublished manuscript called If Movement were a Language. The prize includes $40,000 and publication of her manuscript by Vagabond Press.Bri
Hundreds of thousands of people have marched in solidarity with us against the issue of state sanctioned brutality. Systemic change is long overdue.
At least 441 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have died in custody since the Royal Commission handed down its finding in 1991. These aren’t just numbers to us: these are our Elders, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers and children.
No police officer or authority has ever been held criminally responsible. The legal system is so entrenched with systemic racism that Aboriginal people are the most incarcerated people in the world. Yet when one of our loved ones dies in the custody of police officers, prison guards or medical officers, there is no accountability.
The Kairi and Gubbi Gubbi woman told NITV News her work with the Committee was all-consuming.
“Families were angry. Many of the deaths were preventable, they were the result of medical neglect, targeting of Aboriginal people, over policing and excessive force,” she says.
“We called for a royal commission to demand justice for the families.”
Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in custody campaigner Cathy Eatock said not enough had changed in 30 years.
Source: Supplied: Cathy Eatock
The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody: timeline of events and aftermath
Twenty-five years after the findings of the Royal Commission into Deaths in Custody were handed down, there are still calls for most of the recommendations to be implemented. Learn more about the origins and timeline of the Royal Commission here.