Exclusive: Waterboard torture pushes Youtube censorship button and over 6,000 human rights defenders to protest Google's ban of realistic torture scene video clip from "The Last War Crime"
YouTube censoring a video clip of waterboarding, including sexual taunting, from soon to be officially released feature film, "The Last War Crime," and prompting The Pen human rights defender to launch a protest has over 6000 rights advocates outraged at Google and condemning the ban. YouTube claimed the film clip contained "nudity, pornography, or other sexually provocative content" that Pen refutes and relates to President Obama signing the National Defence Authorization Act this New Year's Eve.
"All these thousands of people share our outrage and astonishment that YouTube should find anything to object to about our waterboarding scene, which in fact has no actual nudity in it, none whatsoever," human rights defender and "The Last War Crime" film maker, The Pen told Deborah Dupré Monday.
Without justifying its action, YouTube emailed The Pen after it pulled the film clip of waterboarding, including sexual taunting, from public view on December 10.
The Pen then saw on its Youtube channel Google's stated grounds for censoring the clip: "nudity, pornography, or other sexually provocative content."
Pen placed the clip back on the Internet and launched its human rights mobilization campaign last Wednesday.
(Watch the controversial waterboard torture film clip here. The Pen notes: "We don't have acres of servers like YouTube, but if you allow a couple extra seconds this player will fully load and cache the clip and it will play and replay smoothly. If we get a lot of hits it may slow down, but please be patient and you will get the whole thing.")
"It appears that YouTube's precipitous action was instigated by perhaps one rogue, partisan political operative. So that's their one versus our five thousand plus already. Where's the balance there?" Pen asked Monday.
Human rights defender and seasoned actress, Christina Linhardt portrays the character of the sexually taunting female interrogator in the waterboard scene.
Linhardt, said this weekend, "While preparing to perform the female interrogator in the scene, I experienced some emotional distress because of the reality of the situation. I had visited Guantanamo Bay in April 2006.
"This interrogation was not a fabricated movie moment. The US military went against habeas corpus and tortured detainees.
"My heart was with all the unknown individuals who had been wrongly accused and suffered through waterboarding and other 'methods of finding information'.
Linhardt said those were the reasons the contraversial scene needed to be done.
Talking about the importance of movies in relation to human rights and edutainment, Linhardt said, "Movies are not just for light entertainment, but to bring about awareness, and hopefully justice and change."
Pen furthered, "I cannot say enough about the brilliance of the actors in this scene, especially Christina.
"She perfectly captures and projects the haughty immaturity and over the top arrogance of the amateur torturers who trashed our national reputation, by designing a premeditated program to inflict the maximum amount of humiliation and pain on Muslim men.
Pen says the proof of Linhardt's brilliance is that the illusion in the waterboard scene "is so good that it pushed YouTube's button."
Indefinite detention and torture linked to National Defence Authorization Act
Torture is related to the National Defence Authorization Act that President Obama signed into law this New Year’s Eve according to Pen who said, “These things all tie together.”
“The real intelligence professionals said torture is not the good way to get intelligence and is counterproductive. Same with NDAA and Congress. The CIA and military tried to tell Congress, ‘Don’t do this.’”
“The NDAA and torture,” Pen said, “Are just a complete discarding of what made our county great.”
“When George Washington made it clear that America doesn’t torture, people were happy to surrender. Same in World War II,” said Pen.
“Contrasting, Hitler put out against his own generals the Commissar Order, as Pen says is highlighted in his film, the Geneva Conventions did not apply to the Russian front.”
Captured Russian officers were to be segregated and executed immediately, the same way captured Al Qaeda suspects are.
"These Commissars are not to be recognized as soldiers; the protection due to prisoners of war under international law does not does not apply to them," stated Adolph Hitler in his signed “The Commissar Order, June 6, 1941, classified as Top Secret, for General Officers only.”
"Instead of these serving as a deterrent, the Russians began fighting harder. Even Nazis recognized the order was bad for morale and Hitler rescinded it," Pen told the Examiner.
“These are the things we are emulating?” he asked, incredulously.
“I did a lot of research for this film,” Pen said, adding that he is not trying to tell people the way it is today in the United States. “I ask people to make their own comparison."
Human rights defenders rapid response to YouTube freedom of speech and expression violation
Now, joined by over 6,000 other human rights defenders and counting, Pen demands that Google not only restore the censored clip from "The Last War Crime," but also implement an accountability process so that others who might be censored have clear access to meaningful review.
A link on "The Last War Crime" movie page takes the reader to the last 25 personal messages to Youtube in the protest stream. Several of the recorded 6000 of these messages are:
"YouTube, are you kidding me?!""The only obscenity is the use of torture by the U.S.""Censorship is treason! Consult your countries' constitution. And admit who you are really serving by denying this clip.'"Hey Youtube. Are you supporting torture or are you supporting free speech?""Shame on you Youtube for limiting free speech and supporting torture! WHY????""So censorship in the US is alive and well. Youtube can censore war movie clips and the US can hold an American citizen, suspected of "terrorist activities" indefinitely. What next? It's time for Americans to get up off their butts and read the US Constitution.""Orwell wrote about people like you, working hard to control messages and thought by the governed. Where is the Google "do no evil" affirmation?""Americans NEED to understand what is being done in their name. I would far rather see censorship of gratuitous violence than of a film clip that helps us understand that water boarding is a shameful activity for America to be participating in."
"This is just the opening salvo," Pen warns, also stating on the web page with the form to send a message to Youtube:
"Shame on YouTube for censoring this clip, which we believe, and we think you will agree, is part of an important cultural and artistic statement of social commentary. And shame on them further for doing so in such a summary and authoritarian manner, with no provision anywhere to challenge this outrageously wrongful act of unilateral censorship.
Selling torture and illegal war on television
Pen told Dupré, "Facts are being fixed around policy, instead of vice versa. We are called to be voice for truth.
"There’s a major torture sales campaign going on, to sell the American public on torture, with people on the news saying torture works, the biggest lie of all.
Pen asserted, as scholars, rights defenders and independent reporters concur, "Torture was used to get false confessions to justify an illegal war."
"If the American public understood torturing persons is not in our best interest, we’d all be safer," he said, explaining his drive for creating "The Last War Crime" and how he is countering what Americans repeatedly see on television.
“Television glorifies torture and supports people who lie about how they got intel instead of showing the truth to the American public.
"As someone who’s been tortured himself, John McCain’s been surprisingly quiet," Pen added.
"What [YouTube] has done is so outrageous and out of the pale, we’re asking everyone to submit this form to send their own personal messages of complaint.”
Questions remain: Who is on the “YouTube team? Is there an email address or way to appeal a banned video? Is FAX the only way to communicate? How many complaints did YouTube get about "The Last War Crime" film clip?
Google's YouTube answering machine does not respond to the Examiner's call, hoping to ask those questions and for corrective action.
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