The Associated Press informs us that Human Rights Watch released a report today on a secret US prison outside Kabul, Afghanistan, where as recently as last year, detainees were tortured by, among other things, being forced to listen to loud music in the dark for days. "They were chained to walls, deprived of food and drinking water, and kept in total darkness with loud rap, heavy metal music or other sounds blared for weeks at a time."
One detaine, Benyam Mohammad, an Ethiopian-born Guantánamo detainee who grew up in Britain, said that he was "forced to listen to Eminem ["Slim Shady," to be precise] and Dr. Dre for 20 days before the music was replaced by 'horrible ghost laughter and Halloween sounds.'"
The HRW report can be read in full here.
So much for music as a "universal language"...
I've not heard Eminem and Dr. Dre's position on the use of their music as a torture, but teenagers have deliberately used loud rap and heavy metal for years to torture their parents. And remember ghetto blasters on city buses?
(To his credit, Eminem is against the war, as is evident from his video "Mosh.")
Tags: torture, Dr. Dre, Eminem, war on terror
I found this interesting as both Eminem & Dre's music is filled to the hilt with defiance, resistance & anger (even if you can't understand the lyrics, I think some of this comes through)....not exactly what you want your captives absorbing....It's kind of like giving slaves the Book of Exodus (oh, wait....we did that, too)....
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