Tackling Torture at the Top (T3), a committee of Women Against Military Madness (WAMM) announces a video contest on the subject of torture and torture accountability.

Prizes: $500 Jury Prizes in Serious and Satirical Categories and $300 Audience Favorite Prizes in the same two categories.

For more information and the contest rules, please see http://tacklingtorturevideocontest.webs.com/

Despite US and international law prohibiting the use of torture the US has used torture, often euphemistically called “enhanced interrogation techniques,” in its so-called “War on Terror.” Despite the law, despite documented proof that such efforts produce inadmissible evidence, false information and false confessions, and despite the blowback of such efforts, the US continues to shield the lawbreakers–both those who committed and those who authorized torture–by “Looking forward, not backward,” and there is evidence that such techniques continue to be used and falsely justified.

Extended solitary confinement is recognized as torture.  It is used extensively in U.S. prisons.  For more about the connection between the U.S. prison-industrial complex and torture read this short article by T3 member, Sara Olson.

Through TV shows like “24” and Hollywood films like the commercially successful “Zero Dark Thirty” and the new documentary “Manhunt” the US’s use of torture is presented as viable, and even necessary to our country’s security. Unfortunately, a majority of the under-informed and misinformed public now thinks that torture is necessary and useful.

Tackling Torture at the Top, through this contest, hopes to produce entertaining and informative videos that contradict this harmful and inhumane view, educate the public, raise questions about the direction of our foreign policy and our use of the military, and by so doing, give the public the awareness and courage to rein in our country’s out of control security apparatus.