Australian Police torture

Australian police accused of torture
The Commonwealth of Australia and two former police officers have been accused of torturing citizens and breaking human rights law in what could prove a landmark class action filed in the ACT Supreme Court.

A Canberra law firm has lodged unprecedented claims of negligence, systemic abuse and police misconduct on behalf of eight clients sprayed with capsicum foam in separate incidents at Canberra city watch-house in 2006.

Their request for compensation for physical and psychological pain and suffering could cost the government and the former police officers hundreds of thousands of dollars. Each of the men alleges he was assaulted with capsicum foam by former watchhouse sergeant John Arthur Birch or his colleague, Joanne Theta Apostoloff, while detained at the city watch-house for being intoxicated.

The aggrieved men, who include an Aboriginal elder, builders and public servants, say they were tortured and subjected to cruel, inhumane and degrading conduct by the officers and, by extension, the Australian Federal Police and the Commonwealth.

Hmmmm, Australian cops, torturing handcuffed prisoners and getting away with it. no surprises here, but the sheer audacity of doing it all on closed circuit tv is a little on the nose isn't it? NZ Police got away with beating Rawiri Falwasser because NZers are deeply conditioned to believe anything authority tells them, it will be interesting to see if Australians are as easily led.

Society needs the Police, but they also need to know there are systems in place to prevent Police violence, this requirement is made more necessary if the population has a fetish for utter compliance to anyone wearing a uniform.