Just a heads up that Taxi to the Dark Side (which won an Oscar for best doco of 2007 - Youtube trailer) is on SBS tomorrow night at 10. From the Wikipedia blurb:

The film focuses around the controversial death in custody of an Afghan taxi driver named Dilawar.[2] Dilawar was beaten to death by American soldiers while being held in extrajudicial detention at the Bagram Air Base.

Taxi to the Dark Side also goes on to examine America’s policy on torture and interrogation in general, specifically the CIA’s use of torture and their research into sensory deprivation. There is description of the opposition to the use of torture from its political and military opponents, as well as the defence of such methods; the attempts by Congress to uphold the standards of the Geneva Convention forbidding torture; and the popularisation of the use of torture techniques in shows such as 24.

[...]

In November 2007, Taxi to the Dark Side was named by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as one of 15 films on its documentary feature Oscar shortlist.[4][5] On February 24, 2008, the film won the “Best Documentary Feature” Academy Award. In his acceptance speech, Alex Gibney said:

“This is dedicated to two people who are no longer with us, Dilawar, the young Afghan taxi driver, and my father, a navy interrogator who urged me to make this film because of his fury about what was being done to the rule of law. Let’s hope we can turn this country around, move away from the dark side and back to the light.[6]

Fantastic doco about the US practice of torture and disregard for the rule of law, deeply disturbing stuff.

In related news, Sami al-Haj, a cameraman for Al-Jazeera has been released from Guantanamo bay after six years of incarceration, with no charge or trial.

Attorney Zachary Katznelson of Reprieve [the British human rights group that represents 35 Guantanamo prisoners including al-Haj], who met al-Haj at Guantanamo on April 11, said he was “emaciated” because of his hunger strike [since January 2007] and had recently been having problems with his liver and kidneys and had blood in his urine.

“Sami is a poster child for everything that is wrong about Guantanamo Bay: No charges, no trial, constantly shifting allegations, brutal treatment, no visits with family, not even a phone call home,” Katznelson said Thursday.

“Sami was never alleged to have hurt a soul, and was never proven to have committed any crimes. Yet, he had fewer rights than convicted mass murderers or rapists. What has happened to American justice?”

Nicholas D. Kristof also wrote a fascinating op-ed piece in the NY TImes about Sami back in feb: When we torture

The most famous journalist you may never have heard of is Sami al-Hajj, an al-Jazeera cameraman who is on a hunger strike to protest abuse during more than six years in a Kafkaesque prison system.

Al-Hajj’s fortitude has turned him into a household name in the Arab world, and his story is sowing anger at the authorities holding him without trial.

That’s us. Al-Hajj is one of our forgotten prisoners in Guantánamo Bay.

If the Bush administration appointed an Undersecretary of State for Antagonizing the Islamic World, with advice from a Blue Ribbon Commission for Sullying America’s Image, it couldn’t have done a more systematic job of discrediting our reputation around the globe.

Instead of using American political capital to push for peace in the Middle East or Darfur, it is using it to force-feed al-Hajj.

It goes on to say that, according to Hajj’s lawyers, the United States offered al-Hajj a deal: immediate freedom if he would spy on al-Jazeera, but Al-Hajj refused.

To stand against torture and arbitrary detention is not to be squeamish. It is to be civilized.

Amen to that.

Hi Luke, I watched the doco.

It brought Romans 1-2 to mind.

28Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

1You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things…

The blind ruthlessness of the US leadership.

The moral relativism of the guards.

Some of the torture was undoubtedly sexual abuse.

Unbelievably disturbing to see what is being done in ‘our’ name.

Absolutely Jeremy, glad you watched it (as disturbing as it is), its mind-bending that this stuff gets a free pass as policy, and the only people that are brought to account are a few grunts at the very bottom of the food chain. Thank goodness for documentaries like this I guess, but still, awful, awful stuff.