The United States of Torture
Remember this image from the U.S. prison in Abu Ghraib, Iraq circa 2004?
20 years ago this week, news and photos revealed that U.S. soldiers and CIA agents were routinely torturing prisoners at Abu Ghraib, a U.S. Army detention center outside Baghdad with 3,200 inmates. Abu Ghraib had also been a torture chamber under Saddam Hussein. Now pictures showed Iraqi men, usually naked with suffocating hoods over their heads, being brutalized and humiliated by U.S. Military Police (MPs), who posed in trophy pictures with wide grins, mocking the prisoners.
In 2008, the Center for Constitutional Rights filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of Iraqi torture survivors against U.S.-based government contractor CACI Premier Technology, Inc. On Monday April 15, after nearly 16 years and more than 20 dismissal attempts by CACI, the case went to trial. The three plaintiffs ― Suhail Najim Abdullah Al Shimari, Asa’ad Hamza Hanfoosh Zuba’e, and Salah Hasan Nusaif Al-Ejaili ― endured the torture. They will testify. More in The Guardian and more from the Center for Constitutional Rights.
We want to note the recent passing of two exceptional visual artists, both of whom created large bodies of astonishing work, including works of protest about the U.S. torture at Abu Ghraib.
Richard Serra, famous for huge abstract steel sculptures, died last month at 85. Soon after World Can’t Wait was formed in 2005, he made available to us copies of his drawing of the iconic Abu Ghraib photo.
Fernando Botero, the Columbian artist known internationally for painting and sculpting figures bursting with life, shocked the public with images of Abu Ghraib. “These works are the result of the indignation that the violations in Iraq produced in me and the rest of the world,” he said. He died last fall at 91. Below, talking about the work.
Both of these artists contributed work to Redact This! Artists Against Torture, a collection of artwork made in response to acts of torture at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and CIA Black Sites. This 2010 work was edited by the artist David Schwittek, with the suppport of World Can’t Wait. Here’s a three-minute video about Redact This!
(Free) Webinar Wednesday, April 24 7:00 pm ET with our friend Roy Eidelson
“Doing Harm: How the World’s Largest Psychological Association Lost Its Way in the
War on Terror”
Roy Eidelson, PhD, is a licensed psychologist, a member of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology, a past president of Psychologists for Social Responsibility, and the former executive director of the Solomon Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict at the University of Pennsylvania.
>> Zoom link Meeting ID: 696 3653 1340 Passcode: peace
We also note the passing of Jean Maria Arrigo, who helped reveal collusion between American Psychological Association officials and Defense Department leaders, who had turned to psychologists for help with brutal interrogation programs after 9/11.
New film: “I Am Gitmo” opens soon in NYC and Los Angeles
>> Here’s a link to be eligible for free tickets during several NYC showings
>> You may donate to the Guantanamo Survivors Fund, which the producers are generously promoting at film openings in NYC and Los Angeles.
From Philippe Diaz, director of “I Am Gitmo:”
My main goals with the film are:
- Seeing the release of the last innocent people imprisoned there
- The closure of this infamous prison
- The permanent ban on the use of torture
- To call for reparations for the 700+ men who have been released, stripped of their identities, and left to fend for themselves in countries that are not theirs, without any resources.
I made the film from the main character’s point of view as I want all viewers to ask themselves how they would react if it was happening to them. We shot the film in four weeks in Southern California at 6 studio lots in Santa Clarita, Riverside and Burbank during the last week of the pandemic shutdowns. We are proud to have offered a chance to other ex-inmates as we asked former Crips and Blood gang members to build the sets and, for some, to act in the film. We have behind-the-scenes photos on the website.
