Our November Author: Hector Aristizabal and The Blessing Next to the Wound

Our November author, Hector Aristizabal is a dear friend and collaborator. In case you're just getting to know him through his book The Blessing Next to the Wound: A Story of Art, Activism, and Transformation here are a few links. First, he will be speaking at our favorite bookstore, Vroman's on November 12.  If you can't make that this KZSU Stanford University Radio interview will give you an idea of what's in the book.

Next, be sure to checkout the website for ImaginAction, where you can learn about Hector's work to bring about healing and social justice through theater and the arts (you can also keep track of Hector's theater projects on Facebook). To learn more about "Theater of the Oppressed" listen to Rights Readers friend and host of Uprising, Sonali Kolhatkar interview Hector about Augusto Boal, founder of the movement. Then grab the first chance to be a part of one of his workshops!

A brief video introduction to our author:



A couple of video glimpses of Hector in theater mode can be found here and here. You might also check out this old Pasadena Weekly profile: Playing through the pain. For more on Hector and School of the Americas watch check here.

Hector's collaborator, Diane Lefer has written several articles revolving around Hector's recent visit to Colombia, The return to Medellin of Hector Aristizabal,  Social Justice Theatre for Colombia, Torture: Peace Crimes. Hector explores some new territory:

Men are changing behavior, too, said Aristizábal, noting the movement called La Nueva Masculinidad and even a group called El Machismo Mata, in which men try to end the ways in which violent behavior has become connected to the male identity.

"They did a scene in which one guy is knocked over during a soccer game. One member of his team just says, 'Get up, jerk,' and when another player asks instead if he's OK and tries to give him a hand, the others shout homophobic insults at him for being soft and showing concern. So what do you do in that moment? How do you respond to the situation?"

It's Hector month at Rights Readers and Vroman's is the place to be. Join our Loyal Readers there to support Hector and his work!

For November: The Blessing Next to the Wound by Hector Aristizabal

For November, we have selected The Blessing Next to the Wound: A Story of Art, Activism, and Transformation by our good friend and collaborator Hector Aristizabal:

Hector Aristizabal grew up in the barrios of Medellin, Colombia, where he and his siblings had to use all their wit, wiles, and wherewithal to survive poverty, the ever-present allure of cheap drugs and very dangerous money, and the endemic violence from leftwing guerrillas, rightwing death squads, cocaine cartels, and the armed power of the State. As a young actor and psychology student, Hector was seized by the military, held in secret, and tortured. He survived and went on to find meaning in his ordeal as he channeled his desire for revenge into nonviolent activism both in his homeland and during decades of exile in the United States.

While challenging the State-sponsored causes of much suffering in the world, Hector reached out to some of society s most marginalized at-risk and incarcerated youth, immigrants, and many others using his theatrical skills and psychotherapeutic training to help people shape their own stories and identities. He sought to understand his own identity as well as that of one brother who was a revolutionary and another who was gay and how his belief in personal integrity and political freedom might square with the realities of a country under the yoke of toxic ideologies. Hector was forced finally to examine his own motivations and commitments, and begin to heal his own gaping wounds.

Shockingly honest, heartbreaking, and vibrantly told, The Blessing Next to the Wound is a passionate and evocative memoir that, amid enormous suffering and loss, is a full-throated affirmation of life.

Guantanamo Follow-up

Following up on our very recent discussion of Mahvish Khan's My Guantanamo Diary, we have a new look at the The Guantánamo “Suicides” from Scott Horton of Harper's. Reaction from Glenn Greenwald (Salon) and Dahlia Lithwick (Slate),

The fact that three Guantanamo prisoners—none of whom had any links to terrorism and two of whom had already been cleared for release—may have been killed there and the deaths covered up, should be front-page news. That brand-new evidence of this possible atrocity from military guards was given only the most cursory investigation by the Obama administration should warrant some kind of blowback. But changing what we allow ourselves to believe about torture would change the way we have reconciled ourselves to torture. Nobody in this country is prepared to do that. So we have opted to ignore it.

Don't to forget to check out fresh action opportunities on Guantanamo closure from the ACLU Amnesty!

Update:  Via Human Rights Now,  here's how Amnesty is responding,

Yesterday, Amnesty International wrote formally to US Attorney General Eric Holder urging him to:

1) Release unredacted copies of the NCIS and SOUTHCOM investigations into the incident;
2) Publish the Department of Justice’s investigation of Sgt. Hickman’s allegations;
3) Reveal the purpose of the facility Hickman labeled ‘Camp No’; and
4) Publish any materials relating to the abuse of a fourth detainee, Shaker Aamer, reported to have taken place in Camp Echo on the same day.

  

Doo Dah Parade

Doo Dah Parade!

Our local group of Amnesty International joined with some friends, mostly from the Caltech community, to participate in the 31^st Occasional Pasadena Doo Dah parade, which was held on Sunday, January 20^th, in Old Town Pasadena. Taking advantage of the availability of a truck (and a bathtub) that we could transform into a float, we decided to address the serious issue of waterboarding. We came up with a little scenario in which we welcomed the crowd to “Waterboard City, USA”… While some of us danced gaily to the Beach Boys music in Hawaiian garb, prisoners were “waterboarded” in the back of the truck which had been transformed into a jail/torture cell. Planted “suspects” among the crowd were extraordinarily rendered to the moving prison by two men wearing black suits and shades. It was a great success! The crowd was cheering and laughing as the float passed by, and some people even volunteered to try-out the free lessons of waterboarding that were advertised on the float.

We are very grateful to all the participants for all the hard work that went into the preparation of the float and its decoration. A special thanks to Dan, the owner of the truck, who eagerly put it to the use of a good cause!

Ghosts of Abu Ghraib

Guantanamo has been much in the news lately (and we'll get back to that topic in a day or too) but let's not forget Abu Ghraib. Just in time for Torture Awareness month, HBO has released Rory Kennedy's documentary, Ghosts of Abu Ghraib on DVD. View a preview here. Remember the "bad apples"? The film features interviews with many of the low level personnel implicated in the torture which occurred at Abu Ghraib and reminds us that no one further up the chain of command has never been held accountable. The film website also has a useful resource list.

Torture and Television

The Los Angeles Times reports on a meeting between human rights activists, military interrogators and the producers of some primetime television series, looking to make torture on TV more authentic,

By that, they did not mean bloodier or more savage. Instead, they wanted "24" to show torture subjects taking weeks or months to break, spitting out false or unreliable intelligence, and even dying. As they do in the real world.

Apparently, there has been a huge increase in the quantity and quality of scenes depicting torture on television since 9/11,

From 1996 to 2001, there were 102 scenes of torture, according to the Parents Television Council. But from 2002 to 2005, that figured had jumped to 624, they said. "24" has accounted for 67 such scenes during its first five seasons, making it No. 1 in torture depictions, according to the watchdog group.

The increase in quantity is not the only difference. During this uptick in violence, the torturer's identity was more likely to be an American hero like "24's" Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) than the Nazis and drug dealers in pre-9/11 days. The action-packed show, which drew a hefty 13.6 million viewers last week, was among the first and certainly the most prominent to have its main character choke, stab, or electrocute — among other techniques — information out of villains.

"It's unthinkable that Capt. Kirk would torture someone," said Danzig.

Just as I've followed the treatment of the death penalty in popular entertainment over the years, I had wondered how torture was being treated in television and film and how this affects public perceptions of torture. What the article points out, is that that public includes men and women serving in the military,

Even in Iraq, such series can sometimes substitute for or trump military training, and transmit a dark message to soldiers.

"Everyone wanted to be a Hollywood interrogator," said Tony Lagouranis, a former U.S. Army interrogator at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq who spoke to the creative teams from "24" and "Lost." "That's all people did in Iraq was watch DVDs of television shows and movies. What we learned in military schools didn't apply anymore."

Human Rights First is behind this effort and has set up a website, Primetime Torture, for the initiative. The site includes clips from several televsion series, a brief interview with Tony Lagouranis and guidelines for how torture can be depicted more authentically.

For a perspective on recent films that depict torture, check out this opinion piece from A.S. Hamrah for the Los Angeles Times.

Outlawed - Extraordinary Rendition Testimony

We are still working out the technical issues involved in showing videos like these at our non-virutal meetings, however, in the meantime here is an important 25 minute film, Outlawed: Extraordinary Rendition, Torture and Disappearances in the "War on Terror"

Human rights groups and several public inquiries in Europe have found the U.S. government, with the complicity of numerous governments worldwide, to be engaged in the illegal practice of extraordinary rendition, secret detention, and torture. The U.S. government-sponsored program of renditions is an unlawful practice in which numerous persons have been illegally detained and secretly flown to third countries, where they have suffered additional human rights abuses including torture and enforced disappearance. No one knows the exact number of persons affected, due to the secrecy under which the operations are carried out. For more information visit www.witness.org

Take action here.

Update: One of the cases detailed here concerns Khaled Masri, the German citizen whose case has prompted arrest orders for 13 CIA agents.

Eritrea: Voices of Torture

Eritrea: Voices of Torture
A documentary film from Human Rights Concern - Eritrea
(Warning: graphic content!)


Read comments from the director the film here.

Please visit the AIUSA action center and act on behalf of Eritrean prisoners of conscience today!

Shadow Company Screening October 22

Shadow Company Trailer
,

Amnesty International Group 22 - Pasadena/Caltech is pleased to host a screening of Shadow Company, this Sunday, October 22 at 4:30 PM at the Caltech Y Lounge (1350 San Pasqual Street, Pasadena - map - follow two curving walls forming a gate to a path-- our building is just beyond). The screening is free and there will be refreshments! Discussion and action opportunities will follow film. Please join us!

Film Description:

No one can forget the horrifying images: photos of Iraqis kept at Abu Ghraib prison naked, bleeding, humiliated, and some dead. Since the first reports of abuse at Abu Ghraib became public in 2004, subsequent military investigations have found that contractors and employees of private companies contracted by the U.S. government were involved, along with US soldiers, in the torture and abuse of the detainees.

What you may not know is that the use of these private military contractors (PMCs) in the "war on terror" is expanding, as they fulfill even sensitive military functions, like interrogation and translation services, in addition to logistical support and security services in conflict zones in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.

"Shadow Company," by Nick Bicanic and Jason Bourque, is a documentary film that explores the history of mercenaries, the PMC industry and regulation of it - with exclusive interviews with security contractors, journalists, historians and owners of contracting companies. With tens of thousands of armed contractors in Iraq alone, it is clear that the rules of war have changed - and it is up to everyone to learn how these rules have changed and why.

Amnesty action on military contractors here.

For Your Sunday Contemplation

It's been a tough week where I have been stunned to hear pundits opine that lawmakers who take a pro-torture stance will have the political advantage in upcoming elections. Can we put politics aside and talk morality? Here's a group of folks trying to make this point. For your contemplation -- and action-- today, please visit the National Religious Campaign Against Torture website and consider endorsing their statement of conscience Torture is a Moral Issue and either take action on supporting the Geneva Conventions at the NRCAT site and/or through Amnesty. Amnesty International is an Adjunct Member of NRCAT.

Tags: torture, religion, Amnesty International

Arizona to Eritrea

Here's an inspiring piece of activism for those of you travelling with us on our journey to better understand the human rights situation in Eritrea:  This summer Amnesty International activists in Phoenix put together an ambitious program of performance art focusing on the plight of Eritrean prisoners of conscience in conjunction with Amnesty's Denounce Torture! campaign.  Very impressive!  More pictures and detailed description here.  I think some of our Readers will definitely want to look these folks up in a few weeks when attending the Amnesty International USA Western Regional Meeting in Tuscon.

Tags: Eritrea, Amnesty International, events, torture

Another Great Idea...

The Guardian reports on a new website, Lots of Big Ideas, which aims to give torture survivors a place to share stories created as part of a writing program and counteract unfavorable press coverage of asylum seekers.

Some ... have had no education, while others have degrees and are accomplished writers, such as Hassan Bahri, a Syrian who was a political prisoner for more than eight years and now works as a translator. What they all have in common is a desire to move on from their past experiences.

Tags: torture, refugees

Finding the Humor in Hamdan

With our steady diet of human rights-related reading, we here at Rights Readers are always grateful for the chance to combine humor with the heavy topics we typically cover. Check out this interview of the attorney for the plaintiff in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, Neal Katyal, on Comedy Central's The Colbert Report.

On a more serious note, Amnesty has a page set up in response to the recent Supreme Court decision in the case and the subsequent Congressional fallout:
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld 2006 Denounce Torture Initiative. Keep checking back to find out how you can take action to ensure fair trials for Guantanmo detainees.


Tags: Guantanamo, Amnesty International, fair trials, torture, humor

Chicago Torture Case Update

Veteran Rights Readers will recall reading about Jon Burge, the Chicago police officer, accused by suspects of using torture to extract confessions in the 1970s and '80s as recounted in John Conroy's Unspeakable Acts, Ordinary People. (This excellent exploration of torture in three democracies-- Israel and Ireland are also covered--seems so quaint in this post Abu Ghraib
world, but was well worth the read.) Now we have this update on the investigation into the case, perhaps delivering the closest there will ever be to a verdict in the case,

Prosecutors Robert D. Boyle and Edward Egan said that evidence indicated police abused at least half of the 148 suspects whose cases were reviewed in the $6.1 million investigation, which included 700 people and more than 33,000 documents. Nearly all of the suspects were black.

The investigators were not able to substantiate all of the allegations, but made it clear they believed many of the claims. Boyle and Egan said there was enough evidence to prosecute in only three cases involving a total of five former officers, but the three-year statute of limitations has run out.
...

Among the five officers involved in the three cases prosecutors mentioned was Jon Burge, a lieutenant who commanded a violent-crimes unit and the so-called ''midnight crew'' that allegedly participated in most of the alleged torture.

Neither Burge nor anyone else has ever been charged, but Burge was fired in 1991 after a police board found that a murder suspect was abused while in custody. Burge's attorney has said Burge never tortured anyone.
...

The report also goes into graphic detail about the alleged torture of Andrew Wilson, who was convicted in the murder of two Chicago police officers. Wilson said he was beaten and kicked during his interrogation, and that officers put a plastic bag over his head and burned his arm with a cigarette.

Then, he said, an officer pulled from a grocery bag a black box that had a crank on it. He said alligator clips were attached to his left ear and left nostril and he received a shock when an officer cranked the box. Burge, he said, also cranked the box to shock him and then put a gun in Wilson's mouth and clicked it.

The report said no black box was ever recovered. But the report makes it clear that there is ample evidence -- including burn marks on Wilson's nostril and ear -- that such a device was used.

Amnesty's concerns, about the Burge cases and more recent abuses by the Chicago police can be found here.

Tags: police abuse, torture, John Conroy

Pasadena Event: Nightwind

Group 22 Members are looking forward to a the up-coming performance of Nightwind, our friend Hector Artistizabal's one-man play,

--a harrowing solo performance, Hector Aristizábal reenacts his arrest and torture by the US-supported military in Colombia and explores possible outcomes. Violent rage? Or a channeling of the impulse and energy into the peace movement? He is accompanied onstage by Enzo Fina, providing a live soundscore.

More about Hector's work in this previous post and at his website. Look for us at the event with Denounce Torture! and Colombia actions.

Saturday, July 8, 5:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Forum at All Saints Church

Evening opens with an interfaith prayer service and light supper at 5:00 pm. Following the performance of Nightwind, Hector Aristizabal will lead the audience in a creative workshop session. For reservations and for more information, please call Ruby Gallegos at 626.583.2734.

Technorati Tags: torture, Colombia, drama, Group22Events

Torture Awareness Month: State of Emergency

It's not like this blog is going to stop going on about torture once June is over, but I just wanted to use this excuse to highlight another audio archive from the PEN website. Last fall's "State of Emergency Event" features a series of powerful readings against torture, arbitrary detention and extraordinary rendition. Hear Rights Readers authors such as Philip Gourevitch reading Abraham Lincoln or Walter Mosley reading Ariel Dorfman.

Torture Awareness Month: Air Torture

Amnesty has set up a parody site, Air Torture, to promote the very serious "extraordinary rendition" action which I blogged about previously. Amenities on Air Torture:

All Air Torture reservations are booked through government intelligence agencies.

Air Torture takes seatbelts to a whole new level, providing passengers with restrains such as shackling in uncomfortable positions for the duration of their flight, and amenities such as hooding. As an added bonus, we'll forcibly drug you so you can spend the entire trip in a disoriented state!

Air Torture respects your privacy. We won't tell your family or loved ones where you are, what's happened to you, or when you'll be back - ever! It will be just like you disappeared.

Visit the site to book a flight! Print a Boarding Pass! "Ground Air Torture" is certainly a handier catch phrase, for those who can appreciate the dark humor, than "extraordinary rendition", as those of us who have been wrapping our tongues around that phrase can attest. We didn't have any trouble last Sunday with it though, as we collected 110+ signatures opposing the outsourcing of torture to third countries in a little more than an hour. (Thanks Marti, Stevi and All Saints!)

Torture Awareness Month: Getting the Message Out

If the Motion Picture Association won't allow this relatively tame advertisement for a film about Guantanamo, then try to imagine walking down the street and encountering these ads from Amnesty's Swiss section!

I've just hooked us up with another Torture Awareness Month effort: Bloggers Against Torture
Check it out!

Torture Awareness Month: The Road to Guantanamo

Another post to mark Torture Awareness Month ...

Here is Amnesty International's official response to the the Guantanamo suicides and while most of my Loyal Readers signed the petition to close Guantanamo ages ago, this is the kind of action that bears repeating. For more AI perspective, Eric Sears, Director of Amnesty International USA's Denounce Torture Initiative, discussed Guantanamo on KPCC's Airtalk yesterday.

This seems as good a time as any to point out that as part of Torture Awareness Month, Amnesty is partnering with the creators of the film The Road to Guantanamo opening later this month:

The Road to Guantanamo is the terrifying first-hand account of three British citizens who were held for more than two years without charges in the American military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Known as the “Tipton Three,” in reference to their home town near Birmingham, the three were eventually returned to Britain and released—still having had no formal charges ever made against them at any time during their ordeal. The film has already engendered significant controversy due to its critical stance toward the American and British governments. Additional controversy was generated because of the cast members' detainment by British immigration authorities upon their return from the film's premiere at the Berlin film festival.

Part documentary, part dramatization, the film chronicles the sequence of events that led from the trio setting out from Tipton in the British Midlands for a wedding in Pakistan, to their crossing the Afghanistan border just as the U.S. began its bombing campaign, to their eventual capture by the Northern Alliance and their imprisonment in Camp X-Ray and later at Camp Delta in Guantanamo.

One of the "Tipton Three" was interviewed this week on NPR for his reaction to the suicides, and don't miss the article on the film's website about the censoring of the movie poster (uncensored version above) by the Motion Picture Association of America,

Thus, the MPAA's decision puts it at odds with the U.S. government, which has repeatedly defended techniques, including hooding prisoners, as not legally torture, and not inconsistent with the basic American values the MPAA tries to uphold. In a 2003 Department of Defense report, hooding was given a green light, as not inconsistent with the United States' obligations under international conventions or U.S. law. The report also approve prolonged standing, though stipulated that it "should never make the detainee exhausted to the point of weakness or collapse." And that it not be "enforced by physical restraints."

Which means that the MPAA required a change in the image that removed something not deemed torture (hooding) and focused the image on the bound hands and extended arms that clearly depicts someone forced to stand (or worse, hang) under restraint to the point of collapse, which might well be torture.

Kirby Dick, director of "This Film Is Not Yet Rated," a new film devoted to the MPAA and its ratings system, said that's not the only irony in the MPAA's decision. He compares the MPAA's secrecy to the secrecy that has governed so much of what has happened at the prison in Guantanamo and other U.S. facilities where suspects in the war on terror have been held.

"It's also interesting that the image is of someone whose vision is being blocked -- and that's the image that they're blocking," Dick said. "When you get into censorship, the irony never stops."

Time to open our eyes! The film opens in Pasadena on June 23.

Torture Awareness Month: Extraordinary Rendition Action

First post this month in recognition of Torture Awareness Month. Group 22 members are helping to promote legislation pending in Congress to end the practice of “extraordinary renditions” in which the United States is sending individuals for interrogation to countries with a record of torture. While US laws prohibit these types of transfers, the US Government is reported to have sent or been complicit in sending individuals to countries such as Jordan, Morocco, Syria, and Egypt – countries the US has criticized for practicing torture. Help us out! Urge your Representative to cosponsor and pass H.R. 952, the “Torture Outsourcing Prevention Act” and your Senator to cosponsor and pass S. 654, the “Convention Against Torture Implementation Act." Take action now!