THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELED
March 17, 2020 (Tuesday)
Room 140, Berkeley Law
University of California, Berkeley
Reception — 5.30 pm
Film screening — 6.00 pm
A panel discussion and Q&A with the director will follow the film
RSVP by March 12 here
Sponsored by the Miller Institute for Global Challenges and the Law, the Berkeley Journal of International Law, the Human Rights Center, and the International Human Rights Law Clinic
In the 1950s the CIA and Canada covertly funded Scottish-born psychiatrist Dr. Ewen Cameron to embark on the darkest program of psychological experimentation in modern history. Subjecting his “patients” to sensory deprivation, sensory overload, LSD injections, and extreme physical and mental torture, Cameron’s techniques have since been used in 27 countries around the world. With testimony from senior American psychologists, military personnel and key whistleblowers, director Stephen Bennett shines fresh light upon claims of collusion between doctors and the state and lays bare the legacy of pain left behind by Cameron. From the establishment of a mind control laboratory in Montreal and the humiliation and terror of Guantanamo, to the “Hooded Men” of Belfast seeking justice and reparation at the European Court of Human Rights, “Eminent Monsters: A Manual For Modern Torture” is an urgent call to the international community to right the wrongs of the past and protect us from a dangerous future.
Moderator
Eric Stover, Faculty Director, Human Rights Center. Professor Stover is a pioneer in utilizing empirical research methods to address emerging issues in human rights and international humanitarian law. Professor Stover has published numerous books, including The Breaking of Bodies and Minds: Torture, Psychiatric Abuse, and the Health Professions and The Guantanamo Effect: Exposing the Consequences of US Detention and Interrogation Practices.
Panelists
Stephen Bennett, Director/Producer of “Eminent Monsters.” Mr. Bennett is a documentary director who has been working in television for over 23 years, working on international prime-time commissions for BBC, Sky, NHK (Japan), Discovery and History (USA). His work has been award with three BAFTA Scotland awards. His debut feature “Eminent Monsters” was screened at the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2019 as part of a special event discussing the use of psychological torture by governments, and will be used to develop International Protocols on Non-Coercive Interviewing by Member States.
Smadar Ben-Natan, Visiting Scholar, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, UC Berkeley, and former legal advisor and litigator for the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel. Her research interests are the social study of law and legal institutions, specifically the intersection of criminal justice, national security, and human rights.
Laurel E. Fletcher, Clinical Professor of Law and Co-Director, Miller Institute for Global Challenges and the Law. Professor Fletcher is co-author of The Guantanamo Effect: Exposing the Consequences of US Detention and Interrogation Practices. Her article, “Let’s Talk about the Botero’s: Law, Memory, and the Torture Memos at Berkeley Law,” will be published this spring in the Berkeley Journal of International Law.
Harvey Weinstein, MD, MPH, is Senior Research Fellow at the Human Rights Center and a retired Clinical Professor in the School of Public Health, UC Berkeley. As Associate Director of the Human Rights Center from 1998-2005, his research focused on the dynamics of social reconstruction in countries after genocide and ethnic cleansing. He is the author of Psychiatry and The CIA: Victims of Mind Control (APA Press, 1990) and co-editor of My Neighbor, My Enemy: Justice and Community After Mass Atrocity (Cambridge University Press, 2004). He is founding co-editor of the International Journal of Transitional Justice.
For more information, contact Karen Chin at kchin@law.berkeley.edu.
For directions to Berkeley Law, click here.