Contestants on a French quiz show were willing to torture a man to death with high voltage electricity, live on television. They didn't know it was actually all part of an experiment, and their victim was an actor. The fake show called 'Game of Death', featured participants electrocuting contestants who answered incorrectly until they screamed in agony. Psychologists were exploring how far people are willing to push moral boundaries, in their pursuit of celebrity. 80 volunteers took part in what they thought was the pilot for a new TV programme, and just 16 of them refused to inflict pain. One of the show's directors denied he was exploiting contestants.
Showing posts with label torture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label torture. Show all posts
3.18.2010
Shocking Show Suggests People Are Willing to Inflict Pain for Fame
11.25.2009
Canada's Guantanamo
http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/2009/11/24/canada-s-guantanamo
by Eric Walberg
A scandal erupted last week in sleepy Ottawa with the revelations of Canada’s chief diplomat in Kandahar in 2006-07, Richard Colvin, who told a House of Commons committee on Afghanistan that Afghans arrested by Canadian military and handed over to Afghan authorities were knowingly tortured. His and others’ attempts to raise the alarm had been quashed by the ruling Conservative government and he felt a moral obligation to make public what was happening.
The startling allegations — the first of their kind from a senior official — have caused extreme embarrassment to the government, which has more than once stated categorically detainees were not passed to Afghan control if there was any danger of torture. Canada has 2,700 soldiers in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, the hotbed of the insurgency, on a mission that is due to end in 2011.
Warnings to Colvin to keep quiet were not enough to cow him and he calmly told shocked MPs that he started sending reports soon after he arrived in Kandahar in early 2006 to top officials indicating the Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS) was abusing detainees.
Read more...A scandal erupted last week in sleepy Ottawa with the revelations of Canada’s chief diplomat in Kandahar in 2006-07, Richard Colvin, who told a House of Commons committee on Afghanistan that Afghans arrested by Canadian military and handed over to Afghan authorities were knowingly tortured. His and others’ attempts to raise the alarm had been quashed by the ruling Conservative government and he felt a moral obligation to make public what was happening.
The startling allegations — the first of their kind from a senior official — have caused extreme embarrassment to the government, which has more than once stated categorically detainees were not passed to Afghan control if there was any danger of torture. Canada has 2,700 soldiers in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, the hotbed of the insurgency, on a mission that is due to end in 2011.
Warnings to Colvin to keep quiet were not enough to cow him and he calmly told shocked MPs that he started sending reports soon after he arrived in Kandahar in early 2006 to top officials indicating the Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS) was abusing detainees.
"For a year and half after they knew about the very high risk of torture, they continued to order military police in the field to hand our detainees to the NDS."
5.19.2009
Advocacy Groups Seek Disbarment of Ex-Bush Administration Lawyers
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/19/us/19detain.html?_r=1&hpw
A coalition of left-wing advocacy groups filed legal ethics complaints on Monday against 12 former Bush administration lawyers, including three United States attorneys general, whom the groups accuse of helping to justify torture.
The coalition, called Velvet Revolution, asked the bar associations in four states and the District of Columbia to disbar the lawyers, saying their actions violated the rules of professional responsibility by approving interrogation methods, including waterboarding, that constituted illegal torture.
By writing or approving legal opinions justifying such methods, the advocates say, the Bush administration lawyers violated the Geneva Conventions, the Convention Against Torture and American law.
Kevin Zeese, a longtime activist and lawyer who signed the complaints on behalf of Velvet Revolution, said the groups were acting because the Obama administration had resisted calls for a criminal investigation of abuse of prisoners under the Bush administration.
The complaints are available online at the group’s Web site, www.velvetrevolution.us/torture_lawyers/index.php.
Read more...
The coalition, called Velvet Revolution, asked the bar associations in four states and the District of Columbia to disbar the lawyers, saying their actions violated the rules of professional responsibility by approving interrogation methods, including waterboarding, that constituted illegal torture.
By writing or approving legal opinions justifying such methods, the advocates say, the Bush administration lawyers violated the Geneva Conventions, the Convention Against Torture and American law.
Kevin Zeese, a longtime activist and lawyer who signed the complaints on behalf of Velvet Revolution, said the groups were acting because the Obama administration had resisted calls for a criminal investigation of abuse of prisoners under the Bush administration.
The complaints are available online at the group’s Web site, www.velvetrevolution.us/torture_lawyers/index.php.
5.10.2009
Memos shed light on CIA use of sleep deprivation
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-interrogate10-2009may10,0,1512131.story
Reporting from Washington -- As President Obama prepared last month to release secret memos on the CIA's use of severe interrogation methods, the White House fielded a flurry of last-minute appeals.
One came from former CIA Director Michael V. Hayden, who expressed disbelief that the administration was prepared to expose methods it might later decide it needed.
"Are you telling me that under all conditions of threat, you will never interfere with the sleep cycle of a detainee?" Hayden asked a top White House official, according to sources familiar with the exchange.
From the beginning, sleep deprivation had been one of the most important elements in the CIA's interrogation program, used to help break dozens of suspected terrorists, far more than the most violent approaches. And it is among the methods the agency fought hardest to keep.
[...]
Because of its effectiveness -- as well as the perception that it was less objectionable than waterboarding, head-slamming or forced nudity -- sleep deprivation may be seen as a tempting technique to restore.
But the Justice Department memos released last month by Obama, as well as information provided by officials familiar with the program, indicate that the method, which involves forcing chained prisoners to stand, sometimes for days on end, was more controversial within the U.S. intelligence community than was widely known.
Read more...
One came from former CIA Director Michael V. Hayden, who expressed disbelief that the administration was prepared to expose methods it might later decide it needed.
"Are you telling me that under all conditions of threat, you will never interfere with the sleep cycle of a detainee?" Hayden asked a top White House official, according to sources familiar with the exchange.
From the beginning, sleep deprivation had been one of the most important elements in the CIA's interrogation program, used to help break dozens of suspected terrorists, far more than the most violent approaches. And it is among the methods the agency fought hardest to keep.
[...]
Because of its effectiveness -- as well as the perception that it was less objectionable than waterboarding, head-slamming or forced nudity -- sleep deprivation may be seen as a tempting technique to restore.
But the Justice Department memos released last month by Obama, as well as information provided by officials familiar with the program, indicate that the method, which involves forcing chained prisoners to stand, sometimes for days on end, was more controversial within the U.S. intelligence community than was widely known.
4.01.2009
Miss Universe's fun day out - at Guantánamo Bay
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/01/miss-universe-guantanamo-bay
The 240 people who live in very basic lodgings on the southern tip of a sunny Caribbean island may wish to reconsider the less-than-rosy opinion they have of their surroundings.
No less an authority than Miss Universe has visited Guantánamo Bay and pronounced the infamous US detention centre a "relaxing, calm, beautiful place".
According to a blog posting that will strike fear into the hearts of diplomats in Caracas and Washington, the beauty queen - who is also known as Dayana Mendoza from Venezuela - visited the facility last week with her friend, Miss USA, Crystle Stewart.
"It was a loooot of fun!" Mendoza wrote on the Miss Universe blog. She also recounted how she and Stewart met US military personnel and toured the camp, with its barbed wire fences, minefields and watchtowers. As well as a bar on the base, the pair also discovered an "unbelievable" beach in the bay.
"We also met the military dogs, and they did a very nice demonstration of their skills. All the guys from the army were amazing with us."
But the "deployment" - organised to entertain US troops and "boost morale" - also had its educational aspects.
"We visited the detainees' camps and we saw the jails, where they shower, how the[y] recreate themselves with movies, classes of art, books. It was very interesting," wrote Mendoza. "I didn't want to leave, it was such a relaxing place, so calm and beautiful."
Her experiences are a far cry from those of former detainees, who have alleged that torture, including "waterboarding", was practised at Guantánamo Bay.
Britain announced last week it would investigate whether its secret services were complicit in the torture of a UK resident released from the camp last month.
Barack Obama has set a one-year deadline for shutting the prison.
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