[imagecaption] The letter below, written in 2014, refers to offshore processing as being a current version of Guantanamo; a ‘torturing centre’ for refugees. [/imagecaption]
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The ABC TV program, ‘Australia’s Shame‘ exposed the treatment of young, mostly Aboriginal prisoners held in Don Dale Youth Detention Centre in the Northern Territory, calling attention to the use of spit-hoods and restraint chairs in particular. Following public outrage in response to the Don Dale Footage, Australian Border Force (ABF) issued a media release addressing the use of spit masks in immigration detention.
In his contribution to the Save Eaten Fish campaign, Chris Kelly drew Eaten Fish in the posture of the Aboriginal youth Dylan Voller bound in a restraint chair. The Don Dale footage caused shock and outrage, evoking the infamous photographs of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Kelly’s cartoon links the regimes of ‘onshore’ detention of Indigenous people and the ‘offshore’ detention of refugees. Three sites of detention–offshore prisons, mainland detention centres and the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan– are linked by the contracting companies who work across them, by organizational structures, personnel, shared technologies and practices (such as the use of dogs to induce terror) and the same lexicon of criminality (‘the worst of the worst’).
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are respectfully advised that this website contains images of and references to deceased persons.
All viewers are respectfully advised that the site contains images of and references to the deaths in custody of Indigenous peoples, Black people and refugees that may cause distress.