Here, former Guantanamo prisoner Ruhal Ahmed describes his experience of being tortured by earsplitting music in the hands of the US authorities.
Binyam Mohamed
'It was pitch black no lights on in the rooms for most of the time.... They hung me up. I was allowed a few hours of sleep on the second day, then hung up again, this time for two days. My legs had swollen. My wrists and hands had gone numb.... There was loud music, [Eminem's] "Slim Shady" and Dr. Dre for 20 days....'
Testimony of Binyam Mohamed, a British resident tortured by or on behalf of the US in Morocco, Afghanistan and Guantanamo.
Torture should have been left in the Middle Ages but has been dragged into the 21st century by the US Administration. In the name of the 'war on terror' thousands of individuals have been kidnapped and rendered to secret and illegal prisons around the world and subjected to torture and inhuman treatment.
Modern torture takes many forms. A popular tactic - combined with stress positions, water-boarding, sleep deprivation and beatings - is the use of music, blasted at ghost prisoners for days on end to "break them" psychologically. Eminem, Bruce Springsteen, Metallica, Britney Spears, Rage Against the Machine and even the Barney theme song have been used in this way from Guantánamo Bay, to Iraq, to the 'Dark Prison' in Afghanistan.
This treatment is no joke. Londoner Binyam Mohamed from North London - still held in Guantánamo - suffered 18 months of torture in a Moroccan secret prison, when his penis was routinely slashed with razor blades, yet he describes the sensation of feeling his sanity slip during psychological torture, including the use of music, as even more horrific.
To stop this Reprieve is encouraging musicians to adopt clauses in their contracts and make powerful statements against the use of their music for torture.
Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine, Elbow, the Magic Numbers, the Alabama 3, Massive Attack and Bill Bailey have declared their opposition to the use of music for torture and have pledged support for Reprieve's initiative. We hope that other musicians will follow their example.
"The fact that our music has been co-opted in this barbaric way is really disgusting. If you're at all familiar with ideological teachings of the band and its support for human rights, that's really hard to stand."
Tom Morello in Spin Magazine, 2006
We hope that you will join us in protesting against the US Administration's subversion of music's greatest strengths - to entertain, to transform, to inspire - and its use, instead, as an instrument of torture against prisoners held in abysmal conditions without charge or trial.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
So here are FIVE THINGS that you can do:
Sign up to Reprieve's "Pull the Plug on Torture Music" initiative by contacting alexgrace@reprieve.org.uk
If you are a musician adopt the No Torture clause into your contract. Contact alexgrace@reprieve.org.uk for deails
Let us film you making a statement supporting the initiative for a video that Reprieve is producing
Promote Reprieve's Stop Torture Music initiative on your website. Tell other musicians. Spread the word.
Fundraise for Reprieve. Hold benefit gigs. Donate. Reprieve is entirely dependent on grants and fundraisers to continue its work.
TORTURE FREE MUSIC CLAUSE
Nothing in this agreement shall or does grant to any person, whether or not that person is a party to this agreement, any licence, right or like entitlement to use any composition of or performance by the artist in or in connection with any unlawful or immoral context or conduct and in particular in or in connection with the detention, interrogation, imprisonment or torture by any person of any other person under any circumstances whatsoever and notwithstanding, by way of example for illustrative purposes only, whether any such use is made by a person who is a servant or employee of any state or non-governmental organization purporting to exercise, or exercising, any lawful, or other, authority so to act.
The following are some of the artists and/or songs used for torture in Guantánamo, Iraq and secret prisons.
The following are some of the artists and/or songs used for torture in Guantánamo, Iraq and secret prisons.
Click here
Click here.
Click here.
Click here.
Click here.
