Musicians tell UN to ban using songs as torture
Rage Against the Machine ... protesting against Guantanamo Bay at the Reading festival. Photograph: Chiaki Nozu/Filmmagic.com/Getty Images
The list of bands whose music is used to torture prisoners in Guantanamo Bay reads like a grim roll call of American pop culture. Metallica, Britney Spears and even the Sesame Street theme tune have all been blasted into cells at Camp X-Ray, with the intention of traumatising and destabalising its inhabitants. But a new anti-torture initiative called Zero dB is hoping to bring an end to the technique by gathering the support of musicians whose songs are used in controversial interrogation techniques by US forces in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.
Reprieve, the human rights charity that provides legal representation for inmates at Guatanamo bay, is behind the campaign. "In the long-term, we hope raising awareness of this issue will pressurise the United Nations and the British government to uphold the treaties that ban the use of torture," said Reprieve's press officer Alex Grace. "But we also hope that the campaign will attract the attention of high-profile musicians who are willing to speak out against this incredibly horrible form of no-touch psychological torture."
One such band who have already registered their disgust are agit-prop US rockers Rage Against the Machine."I suggest they level Guantanamo Bay," began RATM's guitarist Tom Morello during a concert in San Francisco earlier this year, "but they keep one small cell and they put Bush in there ... and they blast some Rage Against the Machine." It's not the first time Morello and his group have acknowledged their distaste for the Bush administration and the war on terror. Since Rage Against the Machine's reunion in 2007, the band have taken to the stage dressed in the infamous bright orange jumpsuits and black hoods associated with Guantanamo bay prisoners.
Broadcaster Jon Snow, Martha Lane Fox and former "Gitmo" detainee Bisher al-Rawi have all signed up to campaign, which urges musicians to stop "music being used as part of psychological torture in the so-called 'war on terror'". The Musicians' Union is also hoping to mobilise support among its 30,000 members by sending out an article condemning the use of "torture music". Reprieve say they are continuing to lobby musicians whose music is used in this way. The Associated Press lists Metallica, AC/DC, Britney Spears, Aerosmith and British singer-songwriter David Gray as among those whose songs are "blasted" at detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/dec/10/stop-the-music-torture-initiative
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