U.S. artists slam use of music in Guantanamo interrogations
Flashback: Musical tastes in tune with who you are
CBC News
October 23, 2009
Rosanne Cash, REM, Jackson Browne and Pearl Jam are just a few of the musicians who have joined a U.S. campaign calling for the close of the Guantanamo Bay prison and denouncing the use of music in interrogations.
The coalitions of musicians are protesting the blasting of music at inmates to induce their co-operation at the infamous U.S. base in Cuba and are also seeking the declassification of further documents noting how music by some of the U.S. artists in the group was used at Guantanamo.
According to previously released documents, songs by bands like Nine Inch Nails and Rage Against the Machine were used as part of interrogating prisoners.
“Guantanamo is known around the world as one of the places where human beings have been tortured,” Tom Morello, of the bands Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave, said in a statement Thursday.
The statement also charges that some inmates were subjected to loud music played “at volumes just below that to shatter the eardrums” for 72 consecutive hours.
“The fact that music I helped create was used in crimes against humanity sickens me,” Morello added.
Retired general Robert Gard, a leading figure behind the newly formed campaign along with fellow retired general John Johns, sympathized with the artists “whose music was used without their knowledge as part of the Bush administration’s misguided policies.”
The musicians’ statement comes just after former U.S. vice-president Dick Cheney defended the interrogation methods this week in a speech to the Center for Security Policy, a conservative national security group.
On his second day in office, U.S. President Barack Obama pledged to close the notorious prison. The National Campaign to Close Guantanamo is urging Obama’s administration to follow through on his promise.
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November 14th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
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December 22nd, 2009 at 1:39 am
[...] denies Maher Arar’s appeal | UK: Move to withhold evidence in MI5/MI6 torture collusion claim | U.S. artists slam use of music in Guantanamo interrogations | Ottawa was warned Afghan detainees might be tortured | Military commission suspends torture [...]
January 3rd, 2010 at 8:21 pm
[...] confronted by Pakistanis over attacks by aerial drones | The universality of war propaganda | U.S. artists slam use of music in Guantanamo interrogations | No way to escape Afghan combat post-2011, Hillier says | UK: Paramilitary police placed on [...]
January 11th, 2010 at 1:43 pm
[...] denies Maher Arar’s appeal | UK: Move to withhold evidence in MI5/MI6 torture collusion claim | U.S. artists slam use of music in Guantanamo interrogations | Ottawa was warned Afghan detainees might be tortured | Military commission suspends torture [...]
January 14th, 2010 at 8:08 am
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January 14th, 2010 at 3:15 pm
[...] denies Maher Arar’s appeal | UK: Move to withhold evidence in MI5/MI6 torture collusion claim | U.S. artists slam use of music in Guantanamo interrogations | Ottawa was warned Afghan detainees might be tortured | Military commission suspends torture [...]
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January 30th, 2010 at 6:48 am
[...] denies Maher Arar’s appeal | UK: Move to withhold evidence in MI5/MI6 torture collusion claim | U.S. artists slam use of music in Guantanamo interrogations | Ottawa was warned Afghan detainees might be tortured | Military commission suspends torture [...]