I don't know what to think about this... a reality program in England looking at the effects and reliablity of torture (or torture lite as they call it)
um... good that the some media somewhere wants to investigate the moral dimension and effectiveness of torture (its immoral and unreliable IMHO) but horrible that they need to go to this extreme to look at it.
http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,7493,1407810,00.html
requires subscription.
more below
"Channel 4 is to broadcast what it is styling a Guantánamo Bay-style reality show that will examine the effects of mild torture on seven male volunteers.
The Guantánamo Guidebook will recreate some of the practices used at the US naval base where hundreds of so-called "enemy combatants" have been held without trial or access to lawyers for nearly three years.
Using an east London warehouse and declassified internal documents obtained from US sources, programme-makers mocked up conditions as they are inside Guantánamo, before subjecting seven volunteers to some of the milder forms of torture alleged to have been used by US authorities. "
and
"The programme exposed the volunteers, three of whom are Muslim, to 48 hours of "torture lite" including sleep deprivation, the use of extreme temperatures and "mild" physical contact.
As at Guantánamo and more vividly in Abu Ghraib, the volunteers were also subject to periods of enforced nudity and religious and sexual humiliation."
and
"It is part of an upcoming season of films examining the use of torture in the "war against terror".
Presented by Jon Snow, Channel 4 says the programme is designed to examine the widespread use of torture and whether it can ever be justified in what the US and UK governments have called the wider war "against terror."
"The use of torture or of information gained through torture has been justified as essential on the war against terror," said the Channel 4 head of news and current affairs, Dorothy Byrne.
"This season of programmes challenges the viewers to watch torture techniques we know are used in Guantánamo [and asks whether] can such torture ever be justified. Does it work? And how the values of western society are undermined by the use of such torture."