Thread by @callapilla

We've had a few well-meaning people email the #DeathsInside inbox asking for a names of all 432 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who have died in custody since the royal commission because they want to write it on a banner or a sign for this weekend. A few points:

1. That list doesn't exist, or if it does we don't know about it (and we looked!). Our database is the only one I'm aware of that individually lists every death, and we only went back to 2008 because this work takes months and reports pre-2008 are often not easy to find.

2. Individual families may give permission for the use of their loved one's name but generally, there are cultural protocols against using names after a person has died.

And writing a list of names without permission would be further perpetuating colonial violence.

3. If you're a non-Aboriginal person, I'd be really careful about how you use the names or images of people who have died in custody without asking for permission first, even if they're well known.

Well-meaning non-Indigenous people get a lot of stuff wrong. I know, because I'm a well-meaning non-Indigenous person.

So do your research and be respectful.

This doesn't mean DMing every Aboriginal person you follow and asking them to do your work for you.

To clarify I don't mean that NO ONE knows the names, just that the information has not been collated and is held by different communities. Their deaths haven't been forgotten.

Also, in a p.p.p.s, that number of 432 is not exhaustive.

It's just the number that we, the @GuardianAus #DeathsInside team, have to date identified.

The true number is higher because we often don't learn of cases until later.

So be careful how you cite it.

[That goes double for other media outlets. I'm not asking you to cite it back to us for the sake of attribution, but for the sake of accuracy. There are caveats on those figures!]