“The torture of minors in the Don Dale area can be compared to that of Guantánamo.” These are statements by attorney John Lawrence on the Australian television channel ABC. This channel has disseminated images that show the treatment that adolescents who live in the reformatory of the city of Darwin receive.

The case has caused a lot of turmoil in northern Australia. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has launched an investigation into: “We want to know if there is a widespread culture of torture or if it only happens in this center,” he says. In addition, the government has dismissed John Elferink, head of the Northern Territory Prison Services.

The Don Dale Center is home to young people between the ages of 10 and 17. Most of them have come to the reformatory because of clashes or abandoned by their families. This is the case of Dylan Voller: he is the one who appears in the images. Those responsible for the center say they punished him for trying to harm himself.

Another video shows caregivers throwing gas to cause crying in a room where there were twelve children. It is a video recorded in 2014 and in that room was the young Aboriginal Jake Roper. According to him, the caretakers treated him “like an animal during his time in the reformatory.”

According to Amnesty International, 96 per cent of the youth in Don Dal are Aboriginal, as are 59 per cent of those imprisoned across the country. Of Australia’s 23 million inhabitants, 450,000 are Aboriginal.