The UK human rights organization Reprieve has this week begun a campaign to stop the use of music in torture. The Zero dB project (zero decibels = silence) aims to stop torture music by encouraging widespread condemnation of the practice and by calling on governments and the UN to uphold and enforce the Convention Against Torture and other relevant treaties. Zero dB is backed by the Musicians Union which is calling on British musicians to voice their outrage against the use of music for torture.
UNKLE, Matthew Herbert, Tom Morello of Rage Against The Machine, Massive Attack, The Magic Numbers, Elbow and Bill Bailey are just some of the artists who have already pledged their support for the campaign.
The UN and the European Court of Human Rights have banned the use of loud music in interrogations, but it is still being widely used. Prisoners describe the experience as harder to bear even than physical torture.
Reprieve represents over 30 prisoners in Guantánamo Bay. Many of Reprieve’s clients, and hundreds more held in US secret prisons across the world, have been subjected to deafening music played for hours, days and often months on end in order to ‘break’ them.
Reprieve have listed a number of groups and artists whose music has been misused by torturers. To help publicise this new campaign this Google Map mashup has geotagged YouTube videos of the listed songs around the Guantánamo Bay Detention Camp.
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