U.S. artists slam use of music in Guantanamo interrogations
Last Updated: Friday, October 23, 2009 | 11:05 AM ET
CBC News
Guitarist Tom Morello is among the musicians protesting the use of music against inmates at Guantanamo Bay. (Jack Plunkett/Associated Press)Rosanne Cash, REM, Jackson Browne and Pearl Jam are just a few of the musicians who have joined a U.S. campaign calling for the close of the Guantanamo Bay prison and denouncing the use of music in interrogations.
The coalitions of musicians are protesting the blasting of music at inmates to induce their co-operation at the infamous U.S. base in Cuba and are also seeking the declassification of further documents noting how music by some of the U.S. artists in the group was used at Guantanamo.
According to previously released documents, songs by bands like Nine Inch Nails and Rage Against the Machine were used as part of interrogating prisoners.
"Guantanamo is known around the world as one of the places where human beings have been tortured," Tom Morello, of the bands Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave, said in a statement Thursday.
'The fact that music I helped create was used in crimes against humanity sickens me.'—Tom Morello, musician
The statement also charges that some inmates were subjected to loud music played "at volumes just below that to shatter the eardrums" for 72 consecutive hours.
"The fact that music I helped create was used in crimes against humanity sickens me," Morello added.
Retired general Robert Gard, a leading figure behind the newly formed campaign along with fellow retired general John Johns, sympathized with the artists "whose music was used without their knowledge as part of the Bush administration's misguided policies."
The musicians' statement comes just after former U.S. vice-president Dick Cheney defended the interrogation methods this week in a speech to the Center for Security Policy, a conservative national security group.
On his second day in office, U.S. President Barack Obama pledged to close the notorious prison. The National Campaign to Close Guantanamo is urging Obama's administration to follow through on his promise.
