ANKARA<\/p>\n
Australia’s New South Wales (NSW) state has recorded its highest-ever number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders deaths in custody this year, causing outcry in the country, local media reported on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The state has so far recorded 12 deaths in custody this year, ABC News reported, citing NSW State Coroner Teresa O\u2019Sullivan.<\/p>\n
In a rare public statement, O\u2019Sullivan described the situation as a \u201cprofoundly distressing milestone,\u201d highlighting the ongoing and \u201centrenched over-representation\u201d of Indigenous Australians in the state\u2019s prison system.<\/p>\n
“They are individuals whose deaths demand independent and careful scrutiny, respect and accountability,” she said.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Sullivan added that the number of Aboriginal deaths in custody had increased by 18.9% over the past five years.<\/p>\n
The Aboriginal Legal Service (NSW\/ACT) Limited, a community-run organization, in a statement called the report as a “horrifying record.”<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a crisis and a preventable tragedy that should deeply alarm everyone in NSW. A prison sentence should not be a death sentence,\u201d said Karly Warner, the CEO of the organization.<\/p>\n
In May, a 24-year-old Indigenous man also died after being restrained by two plainclothes police officers during an altercation with a supermarket security guard in Alice Springs of Northern Territory.<\/p>\n
According to ABC, 594 Indigenous people have died in custody since 1991, including nine so far this year.<\/p>\n