Red Hot Chili Peppers Music 'Used To Torture Terror Suspects'

Red Hot Chili Peppers Music 'Used To Torture Terror Suspects'

Exposure to music by the Red Hot Chili Peppers was reportedly one of the torture techniques used by the US Government on terror suspects.

The technique was among ten identified torture techniques alleged to have been used by the CIA during the Bush Administration after September 11.

Instruments of torture? The Red Hot Chili Peppers

The classified Senate Intelligence Committee report also confirms the CIA secretly operated a network of "black site prisons" out of Guantanamo Bay.

As well as being subjected to the Californian band, captive Zain Abidin Mohammed Husain Abu Zubaydah was also reportedly stripped naked, strapped to a chair and doused with cold water to keep him awake.

Other alleged torture techniques carried out on Abu Zubaydah included shackling him to the ceiling of his cell and stuffing him into a pet crate usually used for dogs.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers are not the first band to have had their music used as an implement of torture.

In 2008, reports from British law group Reprieve claimed detainees at Guantanamo Bay had been forced to constantly listen to songs such as Metallica's Enter Sandman and Drowning Pool's Bodies.

And in 2012, a documentary from Al Jazeera showed prisoners may also have been subjected to musical torture of a softer variety.

According to the report, some at Gitmo were forced to wear headphones blasting music from Sesame Street on repeat for hours or days on end.

Christopher Cerf, the award-winning composer of Sesame Street, was stunned to learn how his music was being exploited.

"...Of course I didn't really like the idea that I was helping break down prisoners, but it was much worse when I heard later that they were actually using the music in Guantanamo to actually do deep, long-term interrogations and obviously to inflict enough pain on prisoners so they would talk."

But wait, there’s more.

Back in 2003, the US reportedly used music from the very same educational children’s TV series to "break" Iraqi POWs.

The persuasive powers of Sesame Street, huh?

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