Black Lives Matter supporters have taken to the streets in Sydney to demand concrete action to end police brutality and Indigenous deaths in custody.
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About 100 supporters turned out at Sydney's Town Hall to demand the federal government implement all recommendations from the Royal Commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody and end the jailing of underage children.
Paul Silva, the nephew of Dunghutti man David Dungay Jr who died in a Sydney jail after being restrained by five police officers and injected with a sedative in 2015, said authorities don't treat Indigenous people with dignity.
"Indigenous people are outraged that they are being killed by non-Indigenous people. Enough is enough,' Mr Silva told the crowd on Saturday.
"We've had government inquiries, but the government never listens.
"There is never any accountability. Hold the corrective services accountable, hold the doctors and nurses accountable."
He issued a call for political action, telling supporters: "we need to take over the parliaments. It's now or never".
"I believe I can leave my kids here on this Earth with a better government that will work for them and that they wont need to look over their shoulder just because they're (Indigenous)," he said.
The group marched from Town Hall along George Street to Sydney's Supreme Court precinct.
It has been three years since mass Black Lives Matter rallies took place around Australia, with tens of thousands of people marching in Sydney against police brutality after the death of George Floyd in the US.
Event organisers reiterated the need to protest in the streets as a vital way to ensure Indigenous people remain in the national mind as more than just statistics.
"We cannot wait for January 26 to mobilise once again. As days pass, young First Nations children are being abused and denied their basic rights in juvenile detention whilst Blak men and women are dying in prisons," they said.
A NSW Police spokeswoman said there were no issues at the event on Saturday and no arrests were made.
Australian Associated Press
