Australia police carpeted over "racist" video

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australian police who ordered a drunken Aboriginal man to dance and sing while they shot video of his "demeaning" performance have been counselled, senior police said on Tuesday. The video showed an intoxicated Aborigine lying on the ground in the outback town of Katherine, south of Darwin, before two officers asked him to begin singing "Rivers of Babylon," dragging him to his feet to dance and then sing "Happy Birthday."

One laughing officer filming the 2006 incident, the shots of which were posted on the video sharing Web site YouTube, turns the camera onto himself and utters several obscenities.

Northern Territory police issued a statement on Tuesday saying an internal investigation had found the treatment of the man, named only as "Chappy," to be "humiliating and demeaning." The officer who filmed the event had been reprimanded.

"A member was counselled and police acknowledge that the making of the video and posting it on YouTube was highly inappropriate," a police spokeswoman told Reuters, adding the incident was only uploaded to the internet last November.

She said police had tried to have the clip, which some viewers called "disgusting" and "racist," removed without success. In the video, Chappy is led around wearing only loose trousers by a gloved officer next to a police patrol wagon.

Australia's 460,000 Aborigines make up about 2 percent of the population. They suffer higher rates of unemployment, substance abuse and domestic violence, and have a life expectancy 17 years shorter than other Australians.

Leading Aboriginal elder Mick Dodson, named Australian of the Year at weekend national day celebrations, called for a re-think on the Australia Day holiday, saying Aborigines saw the celebration of European settlement as a day of invasion.

(Reporting by Rob Taylor; Editing by Jerry Norton)