Out of Competition

TORTURE IN THE NAME OF FREEDOM
FOLTER IM NAMEN DER FREIHEIT



Arnim Stauth, Jörg Armbruster

Country of production: Germany
Year: 2004
Language: German
Mins: 45

Production company: Westdeutscher Rundfunk Köln
Producer: Durbeck & Dommen
Script: Arnim Stauth, Jorg Armbruster
Cinematography: Bill Brenner, Siegfried Blassing
Editing: Anja Teichmann
Sound: Karl-Ludwig Toel

Source: Westdeutscher Rundfunk Köln
Barbara Schmitz
Appellhofplatz 1, 50667 Koln
Tel.: +49 221 220 8099
Fax: +49 221 220 2600
e-mail: barbara schmit@wdr.de


Day after day new images of torture emerge from Iraq.
The name Abu Ghraib stands for the greatest scandal to hit the U.S. army since the Vietnam War. Who are the culprits and why did they do it? Who are the victims? And who will bear the ultimate responsibility for these terrible deeds? The directors speak with soldiers in the U.S. who tortured prisoners in Iraq, and with victims and their families in Baghdad. Although the U.S. government continues to insist that the torturers in Iraq were acting as individuals, and that no orders to torture were ever issued by officers and certainly not by the Department of Defense, such claims are looking increasingly less probable. The Red Cross had reported on the situation in the Iraqi prison in January 2004, but nothing was done until the publication of the torture photographs and the ensuing global public outcry. The film posits a post-9/11 American society in which the majority of the people believe torture is a right if it serves to protect the U.S. against further attacks.


Jörg Armbruster from 1989-1994 was a journalist and travel correspondent in the SDR foreign affairs department and covered stories like the Gulf War, elections during the Lebanon war, and the civil war in Sudan and Iraq. Since 1999 Armbruster has worked as a foreign correspondent and head of the ARD Bureau for the Arab world in Cairo.

Filmography as a foreign correspondent:

Torture in the Name of Freedom (2004)
Duel with Saddam (2004)
One Year after the War (2004)
The New Rulers- Shiites and Kurds in Iraq (2004)
Occupied or Liberated-Iraq after the War (2003)
Saddam’s Empire—Isolated and Outlawed (2002)
Yearning for Abusir (2000)
Bomb Byblos to Baalbeck (2000)
A Journey Through Lebanon (2000)
1999- The Battle for Water (1999)

Arnim Stauth was born in Germany in 1957. He graduated in psychology from Berlin University. He began his career as a writer and editor for daily newspapers and magazines and went on to work as a reporter and editor for ARD German Television. He has received a number of prizes for his documentary reports from Russia, Africa and Afghanistan.

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