Season's Greetings from the CIA Torture Department (Sudanese Cartoonist Khalid Abaih)

This is from Abaih's book Khartoon! Not sure where you can get it, but you can follow this terrific cartoonist on Facebook, here.

Kathryn Bigelow in kufiya, again (Zero Dark Thirty)

I was just watching a report on MSNBC about how a Senate committee is about to investigate whether the CIA gave "inappropriate" material to Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal, the director and producer, respectively, of Zero Dark Thirty. There is of course a raging discussion about how torture of US detainees is portrayed in the film. And given that the film has not seen nationwide release, I've of course not seen it.

What interested me about the MSNBC report was that while the talking heads were doing their thing, in the background footage was rolling, which showed Kathryn Bigelow at work, and she was always or almost always wearing a kufiya around her neck.

Bigelow, right, on the set of Zero Dark Thirty (Jonathan Olley, Columbia Pictures)

Readers of this blog will remember that Bigelow also used to wear a kufiya while on the set of her previous film, The Hurt Locker. Look here. And here.

I really loved The Hurt Locker. Something tells me I many not feel the same way about Zero Dark Thirty.

Music and Torture, Music and War

Very interesting documentary from al-Jazeera, called "Songs of War." It features Christopher Cerf, a composer for Sesame Street, who, after learning that some of his music was used in the torture of US-held prisoners of the "War on Terror," at Guantanamo and in Iraq, tries to make sense of what it all means.

Rock musicians will lobby Obama to stop the use of music as a technology of torture

And this too, courtesy of Wired:

"Reprieve, a British human rights law group that represents over 30 Guantanamo Bay detainees, is planning to work with musicians to lobby President-elect Barack Obama to end the practice of sonic torture by military interrogators."

Read the rest of the article here.

Among musicians who have protested are Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, who is considering taking legal action to stop the practice. (Don't forget, Trent Reznor has been kufiyaspotted.)

One of the earliest, and best, accounts of the practice is by my Middle East Report comrade Moustafa Bayoumi, published in The Nation. Read it here.

Update on Egypt torture videos

Reports Brian Whitaker: banned by Youtube.

So, I guess no "Golden Whip" award?

Indy Torture Film Festival: Cairo--NOT

Check out this AFP report. (I love it: the "Golden Whip" award!)

CAIRO - Egyptian bloggers, long at the forefront of exposing rights abuses, are planning an online festival of torture videos to run alongside the 31st Cairo Film Festival, local media reported today.

The parallel festival is the idea of a blogger named Walid, the Egyptian Mail reported, and will feature "controversial acts of torture allegedly committed by the security authorities". [I've been unable to track down the original article.]

Prizes, including a "Golden Whip", will be awarded to the best entrants.

Egypt's blogosphere has exposed numerous incidents of police torture, including that of minibus driver Imad al-Kabir who was shown being sodomised with a stick in widely distributed video footage shot on a police mobile phone.

Two policemen were jailed for three years earlier this month for that crime in a rare case of security forces members being sentenced for abusing detainees.

Rights groups say the use of torture is widespread in Egyptian jails and police stations, while the interior ministry says that those who carry out torture are always punished.

The Cairo Film Festival runs from November 27 to December 7.

UPDATE: One of those who first released torture videos denies any such "fringe" festival will take place. Khusara!

Henri Alleg on Waterboarding

French journalist Henri Alleg, arrested and tortured by French paratroopers in Algeria in 1957, describes his experience to Amy Goodman on Democracy Now!

(May the names Schumer and Feinstein live forever in infamy!)