Music has been used in American military prisons and on bases to induce sleep deprivation, “prolong capture shock,” disorient detainees during interrogations—and also drown out screams. Based on a leaked interrogation log, news reports, and the accounts of soldiers and detainees, here are some of the songs that guards and interrogators chose.
Showing all posts tagged torture
Take cover
After winning an Oscar for his documentary Taxi to the Dark Side, Alex Gibney has a new target in his sights: The filmmaker who won an Academy Award Sunday night for best documentary is next turning his attention to the Jack Abramoff scandal, including GOP presidential candidate John McCain’s role in investigating the affair. Alex…
The power of the pulpit
Ibrahim El Houdaiby, Conflicts Forum, February 25: Those who believe that the ongoing crackdowns on the Muslim Brotherhood by the Egyptian regime will cause a major setback for the country’s largest and most powerful civil opposition group are definitely mistaken. Brotherhood members are an integral living part of the Egyptian society who can never be…
A deserving winner
The film Taxi to the Dark Side has won Best Documentary at last night’s Oscars. My friend, Melbourne-born and New York based Eva Orner, was the co-winner. It’s a wonderful achievement.
Never going home
According to Col. Morris Davis, former chief prosecutor for Guantánamo’s military commissions, the process has been manipulated by Administration appointees in an attempt to foreclose the possibility of acquittal. Welcome to American justice, Bush administration style.
The long memory
Iranian-American, Reed College Professor Darius Rejali, Harpers, February 13: Everyone forgets that the Iranian revolution of 1978-1979 was the revolution against torture. When the Shah criticized Khomayni as a blackrobed Islamic medieval throwback, Khomayni replied, look who is talking, the man who tortures. This was powerful rhetoric for recruiting people, then as it is now.…
Taxi to reality
Australian New York based documentary producer Eva Orner, discussing her recently Oscar-nominated film Taxi to the Dark Side about the “war on terror” and torture: It’s really important that we’ve made a film basically suggesting that [the Administration] are a bunch of war criminals and that they should be accountable. What they’ve done is outrageous.…