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Tag: Torture

  • Popular Songs The CIA Used To Torture Detainees

    One of the most potent ways of torture is without touch: first, confine the detainee in a windowless 6 x 9 ft. solitary cell, shackle them to the wall, leave a bucket for defecating and urination, and blast the Sesame Street theme song on repeat for a full 24 hours.

    The Senate Intelligence Committee’s CIA torture report  revealed the agencies’ assortment of “enhanced interrogation techniques” used in detention facilities on detainees after the Sept. 11, 2011 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.

    In 2008, Mother Jones reported a “torture playlist”, based on a leaked interrogation log, chosen by guards and interrogators at Guantanamo Bay.

    The songs include:

    • Christina Aguilera: “Dirrty”
    • Drowning Pool: “Bodies”
    • Janeane Garofalo/Ben Stiller: chapter from the Feel This Audiobook
    • Matchbox Twenty: “Cold”
    • Rage Against the Machine: unspecified songs

    According to the CIA torture report, song repetition was an effective touch-less torture technique used to disorient detainees, induce sleep deprivation, signal the start of interrogations, create a “sense of hopelessness”, and drown out screams. White noise was also administered to manifest sensory deprivation and hallucinations.

    Although the recent CIA torture report itself never mentions specific songs, Andy Worthington, author of The Guantanamo Files, details some of the most popular songs used against detainees. “Hit Me Baby One More Time” by Britney Spears was one of them.

    “You lose the plot and it’s very scary to think that you might go crazy because of all the music, because of the loud noise, and because after a while you don’t hear the lyrics at all, all you hear is heavy banging,” Ruhal Ahmed, a released Guantanamo prisoner, explained to Worthington.

    Songs by Metallica, Eminem’s “Slim Shady” album, Nine Inch Nails, and Queen’s “We Will Rock You” were also mentioned in Worthington’s book.

    Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails wrote in a blog post condemning the use of his songs as a form of torture:

    “It’s difficult for me to imagine anything more profoundly insulting, demeaning and enraging than discovering music you’ve put your heart and soul into creating has been used for purposes of torture.”

    For more information on torture techniques, check out this ABC style comic featured on VICE, with text by Oscar Rickett, and illustrations by Krent Able.

  • Andrea Tantaros On CIA Torture: ‘America is Awesome’

    Responding to a declassified CIA torture report concerning post-9/11 detainees, which included mentions of extreme waterboarding and “rectal feeding,” conservative political analyst and commentator Andrea Tantaros declared that “America is awesome.”

    The Senate Intelligence Committee poured $50 million into an investigation of the CIA’s torture tactics of the 119 captured militants after 9/11, and the 499 page report was released Tuesday. The document summarizes methods of torture utilized by CIA operatives that exceeded guidelines authorized by the White House, CIA officials and the Justice Department.

    The report describes severe methods allegedly incorporated by some CIA officers, who “deceived their superiors at the White House, members of Congress and even sometimes their own peers about how the interrogation program was being run and what it had achieved.”

    The report reveals that one detainee died of hypothermia while being shackled to a concrete floor, one was placed in total darkness for 17 days and some were kept awake for up to 180 hours. Waterboarding sessions which lead to repeated near drownings were described, and some prisoners were forced to stand on their broken legs. At least five were subjected to “rectal feeding” and “rectal rehydration.”

    During an appearance on FOX’s Outnumbered, a visibly perturbed Tantaros commented on the released documents – “the United States of America is awesome, we are awesome. We’ve closed the book on torture, and we’ve stopped doing it. And the reason they want to have this discussion is not to show how awesome we are. This administration wants to have this discussion to show us how we’re not awesome.”

    Tantaros added, “Sunlight at the CIA? I’m sorry, that’s one place I don’t need sunlight. I don’t think they need to give me a lot of transparency at the CIA. Look, thousands of Americans were killed after 9/11. The Bush administration did what the American public wanted, and that was do whatever it takes to keep us safe. These terror tactics have been stopped because as a country, we decided we are better than this. Which is my point. Then why are we putting out this memo?”

    Tantaros likewise took her frustration to Twitter:

    Tantaros presently rotates as a co-host on the Fox News Channel program The Five.

  • Waterboarding Daughter: Doctor Accused of Torturing Stepdaughter

    The trial for a former doctor from Delaware who is accused of torturing his stepdaughter began Tuesday. Melvin Morse, 60, is accused of using several methods to torture his stepdaughter, including waterboarding. Morse, who denies the allegations, is a well-known pediatrician and author who has appeared on Larry King Live and The Oprah Winfrey Show to discuss his research on near-death experiences involving kids.

    According to the prosecutor in the waterboarding case, Morse has terrorized his daughter for years. “The defendant controlled every single aspect of that child’s life, including whether she had the right to draw breath,” deputy attorney general Melanie Withers told jurors.

    Morse was first arrested in July of 2012 on misdemeanor charges of assault and endangering the welfare of a child after a neighbor reported Morse. He allegedly made the girl stay in a hot car for five hours and later dragged her across gravel. The girl went to a neighbor’s house the next day and the neighbor called the police and took her to the hospital. Morse told police that he didn’t really drag her across the gravel, but that he was attempting to carry her while she had a temper tantrum and dropped her.

    The former doctor was released on bail on the misdemeanor charge, only to be arrested the next month on felony charges of child endangerment. Morse’s then 11-year-old stepdaughter told authorities that Morse had waterboarded her multiple times since 2009.

    Joseph Hurley, Morse’s attorney, said that the waterboarding accusation is a misunderstanding. Hurley says that Morse was simply washing the girl’s hair, something she didn’t like, and insists “there was no water on her face cutting off her breath.” The defense attorney also maintains that there are too many inaccuracies in the girl’s story to believe her. As an example, Hurley provided a time in 2010 when the girl told Delaware Family Services that her “dad and mom are good people.”

    The girl also says that Morse would sometimes force-feed her until she vomited and would refuse to allow her to use the bathroom, which would result in her wetting herself. Pauline Morse, the girl’s mother, has agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanor child endangerment charges and plans to testify against Morse during the trial.

    Image via YouTube

  • Cops Find Disgusting Cat Torture Dungeon In Texas

    Cops Find Disgusting Cat Torture Dungeon In Texas

    (Warning: This article contains descriptions of animal cruelty)

    In Santa Fe, Texas, a narcotics investigation that ended Friday had police finding more than what they were looking for; sub-human treatment by “humans” to animals.

    On Friday afternoon in the 4000 block of Avenue N1/2 in Santa Fe, police executed a warrant and raided the house of 39-year old Brian Anthony Cheek, and his wife, 38-year-old Veronica Lynn Springer with the intention of finding drugs, according to Galveston Daily News. During the search, detectives found roughly nine grams of crystal methamphetamine, a scale of which to measure the drugs, packaging materials for sales, and a stolen all-terrain vehicle (ATV) valued at $14,000.

    Unfortunately, as the search went on, investigators later found a grueling and morbid discovery: 20 dead cats, ranging from kittens to fully grown mature cats. Police stated that the dead cats had all appeared to undergo various forms of torture before their demise.

    (image)
    (image)

    Investigators stated that there was evidence of blunt force trauma, disemboweling, strangulation, and burning as well as evidence of cats being burned. One of the murdered felines was found in a box in the bed of Cheek’s truck.

    Galveston County Sheriff’s Office Animal Cruelty investigators picked up the remains of many of the cats which will be later examined by necropsy, thus finding out the actual causes of the cats’ death.

    Cheek already had a history of felony charges for violating parole, but he is now charged with the first-degree felony of manufacturing and delivering controlled substances. Yesterday, Cheek was held on a $300,000 bond. As the investigation continues, felony charges related to animal cruelty and theft are expected to be imposed on Cheek, as well as his wife Springer.

    Springer was charged with possession of controlled substances; her bond was set at $20,000. ‘

    Sgt. Eric Bruss of the Santa Fe police declined to provide any additional information surround the animals, including whether or not any of them had tags or signs of ownership.

    Santa Fe police were assisted by the GCSO Special Crimes Unit, GCSO Auto Crimes Task Force, Galveston County I.D. and the Galveston County District Attorney’s Office.

    Here’s to more laws and penalties imposed on those who torture helpless beings, no?

    (Images via Santa Fe Police, Wikicommons)

  • North Korean Prisons Make Hell Look like a Vacation

    Below this sentence lies graphic content  that will make you lose faith in humanity. If you don’t want to read and see drawings about another atrocity in the world, click here.

    You’ve been warned.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEKjlip9ECk

     

    It takes only an accusation of political “offense” or “unreliability” to be sent off to an internment camp in North Korea. This includes guilt by association, so if one of your family members or friends decides to even act remotely suspicious at all, you’ll be coming along with them. Trying to illegally leave the country, listening to a South Korean broadcast, or criticizing government policy are all offenses that will place you in a “revolutionary zone”. If you’re someone who “committed crimes against the regime” or have been denounced as “politically unreliable” (Christians, for example), you’ll be headed to a “total control zone”. The only difference between the two is that the former gives a vague promise of an eventual release, while the later involves life in prison.

    You might be sent to Yodok, where you’ll live in Kwansilo 15 (translated as “correctional facility”), a political prison where the average temperature ranges from -4 to -22 degrees in winter; one toilet is shared among 200 inmates; adequate medicine is not accessible; and you’ll be forced to watch executions involving the hangings or shootings of your fellow inmates. Shin Dong-hyuk, who was born in Kwansilo 14 and managed to escape to tell his tale described being forced to watch public executions:

    “Shortly after my father and I were reunited after being tortured at a torture chamber in Kwansilo 14 for over seven months, we were blindfolded again and taken outside to a public square where a crowd of people had gathered. I recognized the place as a public execution site that was used two to three times every year. The hand cuffs were removed, and we were told to sit in the front row of the crowd. We saw two convicts, a man and a woman, being dragged to the site from some distance. As the convicts were dragged closer, to my horror, I recognized them; they were my mother and brother! My brother was obviously very weak, his bones clearly visible beneath his skin, my mother seemed swollen from head to foot. An indictment was read aloud, the final words of which stated that Chang Hye-kyong and Shin Ha-kun, enemies of the people, were sentenced to death. And then, in front of my father and me, my mother was first executed by hanging and, then, my brother was shot by a firing squad.”

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lr6Rw0ltFxc

    Political prisoners endure punishments that include being placed indefinitely in a solitary 4×4 cell, water boarding, being beaten while being suspended from a rope that’s tied to handcuffs locked to ankles and wrists, sleep deprivation, bamboo slits under fingernails, et al.  If they don’t die from an execution or torture, they’ll be among the 40 per cent who perish from malnutrition. Food is found by any means necessary, including hunting rats and snakes, and, what Shin Dong-hyuk describes a “lucky day”, finding “kernels of corn in a small pile of cow dung.”

    The North Korean government (despite testimonies from former detainees and satellite photos) denies the existence of the prisons which hold 200,000 inmates.

    Below are illustrations from an alleged escaped prisoner that have yet been confirmed, but are congruent to escapee claims.