Music Torture
Groups call on U.S. to stop using music as torture
It is torture. I have no doubt about it in my mind. It is torture.
Donald Vance was a detainee in the US military's Camp Cropper in Iraq, held for months after he reported evidence of corruption. Vance says he was forced to listen to ease but in music for months on end and that nearly drove him to suicide. Detainees, some US officials and human rights groups say US forces have systematically used loud music against hundreds of detainees in Afghanistan, Guantonamo Bay and Iraq.
You can hear them screaming. You can hear them crying out aloud. They are usually calling out for their mothers or calling out for God to help them. And, yeah, you can, you can hear someone calling insane.
But they keep loud all that long by blasting loud music. We're trying to get them stop it.
In a campaign being launched on International Human Rights Day, Reprieve, a legal group, representing some Guantonamo detainees, along with musicians, are protesting the use of music during interrogations. Not all of the music can question it. It's hard rock either.
~~Put down the duckie
Put down the duckie
Yeah, you gotta leave the duck alone...~~~
Christopher Cerf, a songwriter for Sesame Street was horrified to learn that songs he penned for children's TV shows were used in interrogations.
Humorously, I made the point that I was going to sacrifice those, those writings for my country. But this is not the way I want my songs to use.
Reprieve Zero DB for Zero decibel campaign calls for the enforcement of UN convention against torture and the courageous musicians to hold a minute of silence at concerts. One interrogator at Guantonamo bragged that he needed only four days to break someone, using music and lights.
Ruhal Ahmed, a British citizen who was captured in Afghanistan told Reprieve he was much worst when the music started.
That makes you feel like you are going mad. After the wall, you don't hear the lyrics. All you heard is heavy, heavy band gink.
A Guantonamo Bay spokeswoman would give details of 'when' and 'how' music has been used at the prison and would also not respond when I asked whether music might be used again in the future.
Tracy Brown, the Associated Press.