A video has emerged of a festival-goer allegedly being waterboarded at Victorian dance festival Earthcore.
Waterboarding is a method of torture which sees water poured over a cloth covering the face, and it emulates the sensation of drowning.
The man in the clip being waterboarded looks to be a consenting participant, but he has water poured over his face for about seven seconds before he signals for it to stop. A fellow festival-goer is then heard asking if anyone else wants to try waterboarding.
Earthcore is the same festival where a woman died over the weekend. Victoria Police confirmed that a woman’s body was found at a property in the central Victorian suburb of Pyalong, just after 4:30pm on Saturday, 26th November, however, she’s yet to be identified.
In a statement (below), festival organisers say, “We are aware of an existing medical condition and are waiting for the coroners inquest.
“We offered a counselling service on site to all staff and patrons at the time of the incident. A medical team attended within 2 minutes of the person found and was unable to revive her. This is truly heart breaking news and we will be releasing a formal statement once we have all the facts in place.”
Victoria Police ran a drug operation at the festival, picking up 32 people for driving under the influence of drugs and issuing a further 19 drug diversions. Despite this, police say they were “generally pleased” with the behaviour of punters.
Video of the alleged waterboarding incident, captured by Instagram user nohascoin (Via 7 News), can be viewed on YouTube, below. It has yet to have been officially verified by the festival.
Watch: Man Allegedly Waterboarded at Victoria’s Earthcore Festival
https://youtu.be/nG8za-LtXSM
Earthcore Statement (Via Facebook)
As many of you might be aware we have had a death at earthcore in Victoria this year.
Our condolences to the family and friends of deceased. Before anyone jumps to any conclusions over this very sad situation we would urge caution in making comments that can harm the family and friends of the deceased any further. We are aware of an existing medical condition and are waiting for the coroners inquest. We offered a counselling service on site to all staff and patrons at the time of the incident. A medical team attended within 2 minutes of the person found and was unable to revive her. This is truly heart breaking news and we will be releasing a formal statement once we have all the facts in place.
We strongly advise that making wild speculations and inferences during this very difficult time for the family and friends of the deceased will add more stress and difficulties to a very sad and unfortunate situation.
We find some wildly inaccurate and defamatory comments by media and trolls counter productive, unethical and opens up the potential for further harm to the grieving parties.
We urge you if you do see someone making some unsubstantiated claim to kindly ask them to wait till all facts are ascertained before further comment.
Thank you.
Earthcore HQ
