USA: New documentary looks into the alleged use of torture at Abu Ghraib, Bagram and Guantanamo Bay prisons

Record ID: 809306

  • Title: USA: New documentary looks into the alleged use of torture at Abu Ghraib, Bagram and Guantanamo Bay prisons
  • Date: 19th April 2007
  • Summary: NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (RECENT - APRIL 16, 2007) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) ALEX GIBNEY, FILMMAKER SAYING: "I tend to make films about crimes, and this is another film about a crime. It starts with a homicide in Bagram, Afghanistan and moves through Iraq to Guantanamo all the way into the halls of the White House."
  • Embargoed: 4th May 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Usa
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement
  • Reuters ID: LVA7VHZZB067D1QWCCPR94FJ42CA
  • Story Text: Filmmakers Alex Gibney and Sydney Blumenthal discuss their new film, "Taxi to the Dark Side," which explores the Bush Administrations' alleged torture policy in Bagram, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay prisons. "Taxi to the Dark Side," a new documentary film from Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Alex Gibney, director of "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room," investigates the Bush Administration's policy on torture, exposing what they say is a worldwide system of detention and interrogation that condones torture and the abrogation of human rights.
    The film begins by exploring the homicide of an innocent taxi driver at the Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan.
    "I tend to make films about crimes," Gibney told Reuters. "And this is another film about a crime. It starts with a homicide in Bagram, Afghanistan and moves through Iraq to Guantanamo all th way into the halls of the White House."
    The film argues that torture is one result of the the Bush Administration's use of wartime powers, and it undermines the very principles on which the United States was founded. It incorporates never-before-seen images from inside the Bagram, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay prisons.
    Also included are interviews with former government officials such as John Yoo, Alberto Mora and Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, as well as interrogators, prison guards, and New York Times reporters Tim Golden and Carlotta Gall, who blew the lid off the abuse taking place in Afghanistan.
    The film also shows the progression of the Administration's policy on torture from the secret role of key administration figures, such as Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzales and others, to the soldiers in the field, who under the hastily drafted Military Commissions Act, have been forced to take the blame while government officials were granted immunity.
    In terms of what's new," said Gibney, "I think people will also be shocked by the fact that there are images that they simply haven't seen before. We got into prisons that have never been gotten into before. We have video of people that I think thought would want to escape the public view. Now it's going to be out there."
    Added Sydney Blumenthal, an executive producer of the film, "The most shocking aspect of 'Taxi to the Dark Side' is that torture is not the result of aberrant individuals but of deliberate government policy."
    Finally, the film asks whether the United States has lost the moral high ground in the war on terror and made itself less safe, and whether the United States has compromised its own sense of humanity, its democratic values and its effectiveness as a world leader.
    "This was a very personal film for me," said Gibney, "in part because my father was an interrogator in World War II. He interrogated Japanese prisoners in the Pacific theatre, and just before he died he pulled me aside and said 'Get your camera, I want to talk to you about this,' and he talked to me very movingly about how horrified and upset he was over this policy of torture. It was upsetting the very values that he had fought so hard for during World War II."
    "Taxi to the Dark Side" premieres at the Tribeca Film Festival later this month, and is expected to be released in the United States later this year.
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