Michael de Laine

By Michael de Laine, the Copenhagen Voice, 6 November 2009

Abu Ghraib, Bagram and Guantanamo Bay – three detention centres run by the US military in the past eight years, where prisoners have been tortured in the fight against terrorism.

The media has long played a role in uncovering the excesses of government and military intervention, and media coverage of torture, interrogation processes, special renditions and individual businesses’ involvement does not please the military, the authorities or the companies involved. Indeed, journalists are killed in some countries for trying to cover these topics.

The International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims (IRCT) and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) held a journalists’ seminar today on ‘Preventing terrorism within the fight against terrorism’.

“There is nothing called ‘objective journalism’,” said Erling Borgen, a journalist who uncovered the Norwegian company Aker Kværner’s involvement until 2004 in supplying materials to Guantanamo Bay. “We all select what we want to say or who we want to speak to.”

Nevertheless, also in investigative reporting, journalists must aim for fair and balanced reports. There is no “nearly truth” or half-truth. The facts have to be right, relevant and essential. The people or companies exposed have the right to replay, even if they refuse to make use of that right.

One of the results of his film, ‘Et lite stykke Norge (A little piece of Norway)’, was a 5 billion Norwegian kroner increase in the Norwegian government’s stake in Kværner.

Prisoner 345, Sami Al Haj, a cameraman for the Al Jazeera TV station, told the Copenhagen Voice how he spent six years in the Guantanamo Bay detention centre, undergoing torture, before he was released in 2008 without being charged. He has since returned to work for Al Jazeera, and has also co-founded the Guantanamo Justice Centre.

Tara McKelvey, contributing editor at Marie Claire magazine and a fellow of Johns Hopkins University’s International Reporting Project, spoke of her book, ‘Monstering: Inside America’s Policy on Secret Interrogations and Torture in the Terror War’ and her perceptions of the public’s response to reports of the torture.

IRCT secretary-general Brita Sydhoff told the Copenhagen Voice that no-one actually knows whether there is more or less torture today than a few years ago, but there is still a need for treatment of torture victims, while prosecuting the perpetrators is a difficult and time-consuming task.

In April 2004, the Abu Ghraib photographs set off an international scandal. Yet until this book, the full story behind that scandal has never been told. Tara McKelvey - the first US journalist to speak with female prisoners from Abu Ghraib - travelled to the Middle East and across the United States to seek out victims and perpetrators.

In her book, McKelvey tells how soldiers, acting in an atmosphere that encouraged abuse and sadism, were unleashed on a prison population of whom the vast majority, according to Army documents, were innocent citizens. She gained unprecedented access to soldiers, officers, administration officials, and suspected terrorists. She also provides an inside look at Justice Department theories of presidential power to show how the many abuses were licensed by the government.

Monstering is a gripping and important exposé that reaches well beyond the frame of the notorious photos to provide a vital examination of the under-investigated crimes of Abu Ghraib.