Justice Through Music & Op-Critical: Torture Me
Justice Through Music has teamed with the band Op-Critical to produce this video “Torture Me”:
See the Press Release on this video initiative:
WASHINGTON, Nov. 3 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Justice Through Music (“JTM”), a national non-profit that works with famous bands to get people involved with important social causes, released a new music video this week to focus attention on the horrors of torture by the United States government. JTM collaborated with the band Op-Critical, filming one of the band members getting waterboarded, hooded, hung from bars, dragged and confined in an abandoned prison. In just a few days, the video has been viewed over ten thousand times on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hl4HGNmfBkc.
“With the release of new torture documents this week and Obama’s recent censorship of Bush torture photos, it is important for people to see what torture looks like,” said Op-Critical’s Storm. “In our video, we show not only how the victim is tortured, but how the torturer goes home, looks in the mirror, and sees a M-O-N-S-T-E-R looking back at him.”
JTM video editors used a sophisticated morphing process to transform the torturer’s face into that of Hannibal Lecter to underscore the diabolical and sadistic nature of torture.
Op-Critical has been pushing the envelope for years to raise awareness of issues most artists are afraid to address. Their music videos about war, Darfur, rigged elections, police profiling, killing of innocents, propaganda, and nuclear devastation have been viewed over a million times on YouTube, MySpace and elsewhere. www.MySpace.com/opcritical.
“We combine good music with a strong message to get the point across in the hope that our noise will wake people up, get them off the couch, and put a stop to these terrible injustices,” continued Storm. “There is a huge appetite around the world for artists to speak out about these issues, yet record labels have by and large ignored this important market out of fear that they will offend someone, somewhere. This is unfortunate because people, especially
youth, look to artists to educate them in the way artists did during the 60’s. Record companies could make a real difference by supporting artists who speak out. Not only would they make money, but such support would give them back the street creds they lost a decade ago,” he noted.The video, “Torture Me,” can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hl4HGNmfBkc. JTM has hours of unused torture footage and hundreds of torture photos from the film shoot available for use by media and others who want to bring attention to torture.
November 3rd, 2009