Sentence in Aboriginal Teen’s Death Is Too Lenient, Protesters in Australia Say
By ISABELLA KWAIJULY 24, 2017
SYDNEY, Australia — Shouting "shame," protesters on Monday held demonstrations across Australia to express
their anger over what they said was a lenient sentence in the death of a 14-year-old Aboriginal boy.
Outside the Supreme Court of New South Wales in Sydney, many protesters wore black, yellow
and red — the colors of the Aboriginal flag — and Black Lives Matter shirts.
Meyne Wyatt said that Aboriginal peopl
Speakers threw red ocher, a traditional Aboriginal paint
that they said represented spilled blood, at the glass walls of the Supreme Court and wrote Elijah’s name on the glass as police officers watched.
"Aboriginal blood has been spilled, and it continues to be spilled," Lynda-June Coe, a representative of Fighting
in Solidarity Towards Treaties, an advocacy group for Australia’s First Nations people, told the crowd.
Jess Loudon said that It’s been 230 years of systemic decimation of culture, systemic
decimation of a race of people who have done absolutely nothing but be here,
