PERTH (First Nations Telegraph / WA Today/ ABC): A Western Australian hotel owner has been forced to apologise for banning indigenous people from the Denver City Hotel, in Coolgardie, Western Australia.
An outcry erupted on social media after hotel owner Deborah Ovens put up a sign a week ago alleging that an indigenous person had stolen her phone and until it was returned, all indigenous people would be barred.
At least one indigenous man, who wanted to be named only as Michael, has now contacted the Aboriginal Legal Service of Western Australia to take legal action against her after he too was turned away from the hotel.
Other indigenous Australians reported that Ovens had questioned them about whether they were Aboriginal or not, before turning them away from the hotel too.
But Ovens was forced to apologise and retract her ban on Aboriginal people just days later, following a social media outcry against her.
"Ovens faced the ire of social media, with Facebook, Twitter and even social news and entertainment website BuzzFeed heavily criticising her actions" reported Liam Ducey of WA Today.
Meanwhile, on the other side of Australia, the Queensland Police Commissioner has finally held a meeting with an indigenous Australian woman, Sheila Oakley, who was blinded in one eye by a policeman who fired a taser at her last month.
The First Nations Telegraph quoted indigenous community leader Sam Watson as saying that it took four weeks of pressure before the police commissioner agreed to meet Oakley, who was tasered in her home.
The pressure included a march by more than 100 people to the Logan police station in Brisbane, where people from Logan's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community said they were being harassed by local police.
Police are supposed to taser people in their torsos only, to minimise serious injuries. The police face an internal investigation to find out why they tasered Oakley's face.
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