Topic torture
The Superior Human?
1.32K views
The idea that humans are superior to all other life forms is a fundamental underlying premise of western culture. It is an old historical idea, rooted in colonialism, and is embedded in religion and science. It is one of the root causes for destruction of the natural world, animal cruelty, war, the extinction of species and other immense problems. The Superior Human? challenges this arrogant and self-destructive ideology; unwinds the myths, using examples and 'common sense'.
The Shock Doctrine
2.18K views
By comparing the confluence of ideas about modifying behaviour using shock therapy and other sensory deprivation alongside the "shock treatment" of modifying national economics using the teachings of Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of economics, The Shock Doctrine presents the workings of global capitalism and details how the US, along with other western countries, has exploited natural and man-made disasters in developing countries to push through free market reforms from which they stand to benefit...
Iraq’s Secret War Files
1.29K views
Initially, the Americans claimed that they were not recording casualty figures. George Bush stated that America would do its "utmost to avoid civilian casualties". But now, details of the US Military themselves recording over 109,000 deaths have been released by Wikileaks -- over 66,000 civilian deaths; 176,000 civilians and others wounded. Iraq's Secret War Files reveals the true scale of civilian casualties, and examines evidence that after the "scandal" of Abu Ghraib, American soldiers continued to torture prisoners; and that US forces did not intervene in the torture and murder of detainees by Iraqi security services...
Gitmo — The New Rules of War
154 views
In the wake of the attacks of September 11th 2001, the United States opened a prison camp in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The hundreds of prisoners detained there are not afforded prisoners of war status according to the Geneva Convention, they are labelled "unlawful combatants" and are held indefinitely and tortured with no right to a lawyer or a trial. Gitmo -- The New Rules Of War cuts through the official political rhetoric surrounding Guantánamo to expose what really goes on at the United States central gulag in the 'war on terror'.
Death On A Factory Farm
1.10K views
Having received a tip from an employee at a farm where animals were being abused, including a claim that pigs were being hung by chains and strangled to death as a form of 'euthanasia', the Humane Farming Association (HFA) turns to an undercover investigator going by the name of "Pete." While wearing a hidden camera, Pete secretly films and collects evidence while working undercover as a farmhand. But in the subsequent trial carried by the HFA against the farm, the prosecutors and the defence argue the legality and morality of these practices. The presiding judge describes it as "distasteful and offensive", however, rules that the practices are the reality of factory farming...
Earthlings — Animal Testing and Torture
709 views
Humanity is absolutely dependent on animals as part of life. In industrial society however, this has extended to animals as pets, 'entertainment' and for expendable use in scientific research -- animals are tortured for 'scientific tests', locked in cages as pets and at the zoo and are bred on mass for cheap meat. What does this say about industrial civilisation? Earthlings conducts an in-depth study into pet stores, puppy mills and animals shelters, as well as factory farms, the leather and fur trades, sports and entertainment industries, and the medical and scientific profession, using hidden cameras to directly show the day-to-day practices of some of the largest industries in the world...
History of Human Experimentation
1.65K views
In the early 1940s, hundreds of thousands of military personnel unknowingly became human guinea pigs in toxin experiments and biological weapon tests conducted by the U.S. government -- "Truth syrums" tested on civilians, nerve gas sprayed into suburbs, hospital patients injected with plutonium, children exposed to biological chemical agents... the list goes on and on, and in most if not all cases, tests were carried out without the knowledge or consent of those involved...
Crazy Rulers of The World
904 views
Crazy Rulers of the World is a series that investigates what happens when chiefs of US intelligence, the army, and the government "began believing in very strange things". With first-hand access to the leading players in the story, Jon Ronson examines the extraordinary and plain bizarre national secrets at the core of the war on terror...
In Guantánamo
540 views
The Guantanamo detention camp, "Gitmo", covers forty five square miles of Cuba inside an area under a "permanent lease" to the United States. Since 2002, the base has become synonymous with its detainment of "suspected terrorists". Although Barack Obama has given orders for the detention camp to be closed, the facilities remain open to this day. David Miller's quiet, powerful film is the result of three days the film-maker spent touring the camps in May 2008 as part of a small group of media representatives allowed there. Although the event was presented as a chance to 'see inside' the working of Guantanamo, it was in fact a carefully staged PR exercise designed to yield predictable, stale and controlled media images...
About Woomera
412 views
To its backers, Woomera detention centre played a "humane yet crucial role in housing the growing numbers of boat people landing on Australia's shores". To its critics, this heavily guarded cluster of buildings, ringed by red desert and razor wire, represented the "dead heart of asylum-seeker policy"...
Outsourcing Torture
406 views
Outsourcing Torture documents the account of Mamdouh Habib, an Australian Muslim arrested in Afghanistan during a "general round up" where he was sent to Egypt to be tortured. Three years after his arrest, Mahdouh Habib is still imprisoned in Guantanamo, still not having been charged with any crime...
Taxi to The Dark Side
724 views
Taxi To The Dark Side examines 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 American television shows...