Death in custody: Justice for Veronica Baxter!
A press conference was held on June 23 behind NSW Parliament House calling for an inquiry into 34-year-old Veronica Baxter’s death in custody.
Activists presented 500 signatures to NSW Greens MP Sylvia Hale who undertook to present them to the New South Wales Parliament.
On March 10, 2009, three days after Mardi Gras,Veronica Baxter was arrested by Redfern police and held on remand at the all-male NSW Silverwater Metropolitan Reception and Remand Centre. Six days later, after a 14-hour break between checking her cell, she was found dead, hanging in her single cell.
Veronica Baxter was an Aboriginal woman from the Cunnamulla country, south-west of Queensland. She dressed, appeared, and had identified as a woman for 15 years and was known by family and friends as a woman. Yet she was placed in an all-male jail.
Was Veronica Baxter killed in custody by trans phobic guards or inmates? No-one knows, the only way we will find out is if there is a full, open inquiry.
From GLW issue 841
"Australia has the most restrictive media in the western world. Censorship by omission denies Australians their democratic right to make sense of whole stratas of political and foreign policy. That's why Green Left Weekly is a beacon, doing a job of honourable journalism, as an agent of people, not power."
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