Music can be used as a tool of psychological warfare. The term "music torture" is sometimes used to describe the practice.[citation needed] While it is acknowledged by United States interrogation experts to cause discomfort, it has also been characterized as having no "long-term effects".[1]
Music and sound have been usually used as part of a combination of interrogation methods, today recognized by international bodies as amounting to torture.[2] Attacking all senses without leaving any visible traces, they have formed the basis of the widely discussed torture in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. They were, however, devised much earlier in the 1950s and early 1960s, as a way to counter so-called Soviet "brainwashing".[3] Methods of "noise torture" or "sound torture", which include the continuous playing of music or noise, have been paired with sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation, food and drink deprivation, and stress positions.
Claimed to being used by the United States 361st Psychological Operations Company by[1] Sergeant Mark Hadsell:
"These people haven't heard heavy metal. They can't take it. If you play it for 24 hours, your brain and body functions start to slide, your train of thought slows down and your will is broken. That's when we come in and talk to them."[1]
"W[itness] observed sleep deprivation interviews w/strobe lights and loud music. Interrogator said it would take 4 days to break someone doing an interrogation 16 hrs w/lights and music on and 4 hrs off. Handwritten note next to typed synopsis says "ok under DoD policy".
"Rumors that interrogator bragged about doing lap dance on d[etainee], another about making d[etainee] listen to satanic black metal music for hours then dressing as a Priest and baptizing d[etainee] to save him - handwritten note says 'yes'."
"W[itness] saw d[etainee] in interview room sitting on floor w/Israeli flag draped around him, loud music and strobe lights. W suspects this practice is used by DOD DHS based on who he saw in the hallway."
"The physical tactics noted by the Red Cross included placing detainees in extremely cold rooms with loud music blaring, and forcing them to kneel for long periods of time, the source familiar with the report said."
The Hill, reporting on the #OccupyLafayettePark protests, wrote:[13]
"A former adviser to Hillary Clinton hired a Mariachi band to play outside of the White House in an effort to disrupt President Trump's sleep on Wednesday night."
"Detainees have reported being routinely subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment during arrest and detention. Many have told Amnesty International that they were tortured and ill-treated by US and UK troops during interrogation. Methods often reported include prolonged sleep deprivation; beatings; prolonged restraint in painful positions, sometimes combined with exposure to loud music; prolonged hooding; and exposure to bright lights. Virtually none of the allegations of torture or ill-treatment has been adequately investigated by the authorities."
Israel
On 12 January 1998 the Supreme Court of Israel declined to ban the use of loud music as an interrogation technique.[15]
Greece
According to recent research, the Greek military Junta (1967–1974) used the above-mentioned combination of interrogation techniques, including music. This took place in the headquarters of the Special Interrogation Unit of Greek Military Police (EAT/ESA), Athens. New interviews with survivors, held there in 1973, talk about the use of songs, popular hits of the time: these were played loudly and repeatedly from loudspeakers as the detainee had to stand without rest, food, drink or sleep.[16]
During 2022 Wellington protest, the Speaker House Trevor Mallard's used the Parliament speakers to play music such as Macarena by Los Del Rio and Barry Manilow's back catalogue.[18]
Royalty payments
The Guardian reported that the US military may owe royalty payments to the artists whose works were played to the captives.[19][20]
Musicians' protests
On 9 December 2008 the Associated Press reported that various musicians were coordinating their objections to the use of their music as a technique for softening up captives through an initiative called Zero dB.[21][22]
Zero dB is an initiative against music torture set up by legal charity Reprieve, which represents over thirty prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. Zero dB aims to stop torture music by encouraging widespread condemnation of the practice and by calling on governments and the UN to uphold and enforce the Convention Against Torture and other relevant treaties. The initiative is backed by the Musicians Union which is calling on British musicians to voice their outrage against the use of music to torture.
Musicians and the wider public are making their own silent protests against music torture which are being shown on Zero dB. A series of silent protests and actions were planned through 2009. Participating musicians will include minutes of silence in their concerts to draw their audience's attention to the USA's use of deafening music against captives.
According to the Associated PressFBI agents stationed at Guantanamo Bay reported that the use of deafening music was common.[22]
According to the Associated Press
Guantanamo Bay spokesmen Commander Pauline Storum:
...wouldn't give details of when and how music has been used at the prison, but said it isn't used today. She didn't respond when asked whether music might be used in the future.[22]
The Associated Press reported that Stevie Benton of the group Drowning Pool commented: "I take it as an honor to think that perhaps our song could be used to quell another 9/11 attack or something like that." Benton later issued an apology, stating his comment had been "taken out of context".[26]
In popular culture
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In Paul Bowles's novel Up Above the World, Grove Sato tortures Dr. Slade and his wife with infrasounds and strange music, respectively, in an attempt to deduce whether they know of his murder of his mother.[27]
In the episode "The Cell" of The Walking Dead, Daryl Dixon's captors use the upbeat song "Easy Street" as a torture tactic to prevent him from sleeping. Jim Bianco, the writer of the song, was initially confused by the show's request to use the song, but he called its use in the episode "a work of genius".[30]
^Papaeti Anna (2013). “Music, Torture, Testimony: Reopening the Case of the Greek Military Junta (1967–74).” the world of music (special issue): Music and Torture | Music and Punishment 2:1(2013), guest edited by M. J. Grant and Anna Papaeti, pp. 73–80.
^"Chumbawamba – Guest Editors". Spiral Earth. 22 February 2010. Archived from the original on 7 March 2010. Retrieved 7 December 2011. [...] James Hetfield comes out and says he's proud their music has been used to torture Guantanamo prisoners "It represents something that they don't like—maybe freedom, aggression… I don't know… Freedom of speech." Although he thinks music and politics don't mix – obviously. So writing a song about torturing James Hetfield with Chumbawamba's music was irresistible.
Cusick, Suzanne. 'You are in a place that is out of the world . . .': Music in the Detention Camps of the 'Global War on Terror'. Journal of the Society for American Music 2/1 (2008): 1-26.
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