TORTURE: 4-part Channel Four series

[Roland99]

http://www.channel4.com/news/microsites/T/torture/cases.html

The four programmes in the Torture series demonstrate the wide reach of the US in its war on terror.


Is Torture A Good Idea?

Monday 28 February 2005 at 8pm
Clive Stafford Smith is a British lawyer who has represented American prisoners on Death Row and, more recently, detainees in Guantanamo Bay. In this programme, he reveals the abuses suffered by Guantanamo detainees and talks to experts in the field of torture, including CIA and US Army veterans. The programme examines cases of false confessions extracted under torture, suggesting that torture is useless as well as being repugnant and illegal.

Channel 4's Dispatches investigated.


Torture: The Guantanamo Guidebook

Monday 28 February at 11.05pm
According to George Bush, 'torture is never acceptable'. The interrogation techniques used in Guantanamo Bay have been calibrated to fall short of a legal definition of ‘torture’. However, legal experts say they do still constitute torture. The Guantanamo Guidebook reconstructs the regime at the US's Cuban base. For 48 hours, seven volunteers are subjected to interrogation techniques known to be used in the camp, ranging from harassment and abuse to sensory deprivation – with shocking results.


Torture: The Dirty Business

Tuesday 1 March at 11.10pm
Torture is a multinational industry – but its headquarters is in the USA. In this programme Andrew Gilligan examines the CIA’s practice of abducting terrorist suspects and transferring them to states such as Egypt and Syria, where torture is routine. The programme also exposes the British government’s refusal to condemn the use of torture by the government of Uzbekistan, for the sake of the ‘evidence’ it produces: 'selling our souls for dross', in the words of the former British ambassador.


Torture: America’s Brutal Prisons

Man tied to chair in darkened roomWednesday 2 March at 11pm
This programme shows that abuses like those documented in Abu Ghraib are commonplace in the USA’s overcrowded and understaffed prisons. Prisoners are shackled and hooded ‘for their own protection’; pepper spray is used as an alternative to physical force, but in sufficient quantities to cause second-degree burns; beatings are frequent and sometimes fatal. The programme suggests that the cause is not a few ‘bad apples’, but a pervasive culture of dehumanisation and brutality.

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