Cornelia Rau gefangen in Festung Australien

 http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2005/s1335386.htm

Anna's Story

Reporter: Debbie Whitmont - Broadcast: 04/04/2005

Just over a year ago she was roaming Cape York in the wet season, ill and alone. To those who gave the strange young woman food and drink or a bed, she gave her name as Anna, from Germany.

Now, as she recovers in an Adelaide psychiatric hospital, all of Australia knows who she is. Cornelia Rau hit a nation’s nerve.

Cornelia Rau’s case has raised uncomfortable questions about how Australia treats people at the social margins such as the mentally ill, prisoners and asylum-seekers.

Four Corners follows Rau’s tracks from the wide open spaces of the Top End to the cramped confines of "solitary" in Brisbane Women’s Prison and Baxter detention centre in South Australia.

People who crossed her path - through chance encounters on the road or through longer acquaintances forged in custody – describe her deteriorating health and her erratic dealings with authorities and fellow inmates.

"She was manhandled every day to get back into her cell," says a former prisoner. "They’d push her in and slam the door. She had no concept of where she was and she couldn’t understand why they were being so mean to her. She cried all day."

"The detainees kept saying to me, 'She's crazy'," says a regular visitor to Baxter. According to a former Baxter detainee: "There was clearly, definitely something wrong – even the guards knew there was something wrong."

Witnesses’ testimonies, along with other new evidence obtained by Four Corners, reveal the system did more to Cornelia Rau than neglect her and incarcerate her. Warnings went unheeded. She was treated harshly, placed in potential danger, and her dignity was abused.

In the most revealing account so far of Cornelia Rau’s time in custody, Debbie Whitmont tells "'Anna's' Story" - Four Corners, 8.30pm, Monday 4 April, ABC TV.

Please note: this program will be repeated 11pm Wednesday 6 April; also on the new ABC2 digital channel at 7pm and 9.45pm Wednesday 6 April.

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Transcript @  http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2005/s1338239.htm

Read the full length transcript of Debbie Whitmont's report on the most revealing account so far of Cornelia Rau’s time in custody.


Cornelia Rau Chronology @  http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2005/cornelia-chronology.htm

Follow the events leading up to and beyond Cornelia Rau's incarceration.


Background Information @  http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2005/s1336289.htm

Read the background on Cornelia Rau's case in the aftermath of her detention.


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