Unheard

David Dungay Jr died in Long Bay Prison in 2015 after guards stormed his cell when he refused to stop eating a packet of biscuits. He is one of more than 474 first nations people in Australia who have died in custody since 1991. This is his story as told by his family and the experts fighting for justice.

TJ Hickey was a teenager thrown from his push bike and impaled on a fence while fleeing from police in Redfern in 2004. Almost two decades later, TJ’s family, his best friend Keenan and a growing movement of experts and academics continue to fight for justice to change a system that funnels Indigenous children as young as 10 years old into the criminal justice system.

“Asian D***, you brought corona here!”, were the words two young Asian-Australian girls heard before a stranger began throwing kicks, spitting and threatening them with a knife. The global pandemic saw an exponential rise in race-fuelled attacks towards the Asian community, but the issue stems much further back than COVID-19.

Asma was returning to her car after a theatre performance in Sydney when she was attacked by several men screaming racial obscenities. She is just one of hundreds of women attacked each year in Australia for being visibly Muslim. We hear from psychologists, lawyers and those who have experienced Islamophobic attacks first hand to explore why these incidents continue to occur.

At 5am on the 5th March 2018, Sri Lankan refugees, Priya, Nades and their two Australian-born daughters were stormed by armed police at their home in Bilolea, Queensland. The family have spent more than three years in detention centres where they await an uncertain future. This is their story as told by the family and those fighting for better treatment of asylum seekers and refugees in Australia.

Tanaka and Kaden are two Australians of African descent, each pushed to the brink of suicide from the daily prejudice and hypervisibility of being black in Australia. We hear from psychiatrists, experts and those directly impacted, as we explore how being African in Australia can often be a case of death by a thousand cuts.