Race riot

last updated 8 January 2015

Sydney

Aboriginal youths threw bricks and Molotov cocktails at police for nine hours in a night of unprecedented rioting in a Sydney ghetto this week. Cars and buildings were set on fire, and some 40 police officers were injured. The youths blamed cops for the death of an Aboriginal teenager who was killed when he was impaled on a fence in a bicycle accident. They said the police had been chasing the teen, a charge police strongly denied. At a rally the day after the riot, Aborigines accused police of systematic oppression. “They’ve been brutalizing us for years, and now they’ve started on our children,” said activist Isabel Coe. “Why are we still treated like rubbish?”