Indigenous leaders have accused the Australian Capital Territory of trying to cover up the alleged forcible strip-searching of a sexual assault survivor by having footage of the episode suppressed.
On Wednesday the ACT government sent lawyers to the bail hearing of a 37-year-old Indigenous woman, who alleges she was forcibly strip-searched by guards in full riot gear in the territory’s jail, the Alexander Maconochie centre, this year.
The government’s lawyers successfully argued to have footage of the strip-searching kept from public view, saying it may cause reprisal attacks on the guards.
The woman, meanwhile, has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder allegedly as a result of the ordeal. She has a serious heart condition, of which prison authorities were forewarned, and was stripped in front of male detainees, despite being a sexual assault survivor.
Guardian Australia understands that the woman wants the footage made public.
On Thursday the ACT’s Aboriginal health service, Winnunga Nimmityjah, condemned the territory’s suppression of the footage.
Julie Tongs, Winnunga’s chief executive, accused the government of a cover-up.
“The incident involving the strip search of this extremely vulnerable, traumatised Aboriginal woman, with serious health issues and a survivor of rape should be a catalyst for change, not a cover-up,” she said.
“This incident demands, as a minimum an independent, external investigation. Nothing else will satisfy the Aboriginal community or any fair-minded person concerned to ensure that Aboriginal peoples are treated fairly and equally. As a first step, if the ACT government really does have nothing to hide, release the CCTV.”
An ACT government spokesperson said the incident was “very serious” and had been thoroughly reviewed by ACT Corrective Services. The corrections minister, Mick Gentleman, has already referred the incident to the inspector of correctional services to ensure an independent review takes place.
“These allegations have also been brought to the attention of the Human Rights Commission,” the spokesperson said.
The ACT supreme court justice Michael Elkaim denied the woman bail, and suppressed his reasons for doing so until after her trial.
That decision came despite an argument from her lawyers, Ken Cush & Associates, that she would comply with strict bail conditions and that her circumstances had changed, given the strip-searching and subsequent PTSD diagnosis.
The woman said she was struggling with the death of grandmother in the lead-up to the incident and that she had initially been told she would be released to attend the funeral.
But that permission was revoked at the last-minute, she says, causing her to become “very upset”. She says prison authorities tried to move her to a restricted unit in the jail but she was distressed at the prospect of going back into isolation.
“Here I ask you to remember that I am a rape victim, so you can only imagine the horror, the screams, the degrading feeling, the absolute fear and shame I was experiencing,” she wrote in a letter recounting the ordeal.
The ACT’s jail was built with the intention of being human rights compliant.
Critics say it has failed comprehensively in that aim. Winnunga points to the territory’s high Indigenous incarceration rate as one indicator of this failing.
The ACT’s Indigenous incarceration rate is now the highest in the country, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are 19.4 times more likely to go to prison than the general community.
With respect to the suppressed footage, Tongs said “what you will see is horrible and it will reveal the government not just for its hypocrisy but the extent of its failure to take seriously the needs of the Aboriginal community of Canberra”.
The ACT government was contacted for a response.
