The metal band Skinny Puppy has billed the Department of “Justice” for using their songs to torture prisoners.
“‘We thought we would invoice them properly, so we hit them with the evil numbers of $666,000,’ Keyboardist CeVin Key said during a phone call from New Orleans. ‘We gave them a breakdown of the bill.’
According to a guard, who is writing a book about his Guantanamo experience, guards used Skinny Puppy songs on four occasions. ‘The funny thing is that one of those songs was used on a bootleg,’ Key said. ‘What really bothers us is that they played our songs at an intolerable volume for hours on end. The guards would ridicule the detainees when they defecated or urinated themselves. How can there be a torture camp there? It’s wrong. We’ve found out all about this over a year ago and it just ticked us off.'”
Catechism of the Catholic Church, Part III, Section II:
Respect for bodily integrity
2297 Kidnapping and hostage taking bring on a reign of terror; by means of threats they subject their victims to intolerable pressures. They are morally wrong. Terrorism threatens, wounds, and kills indiscriminately; it is gravely against justice and charity. Torture which uses physical or moral violence to extract confessions, punish the guilty, frighten opponents, or satisfy hatred is contrary to respect for the person and for human dignity. Except when performed for strictly therapeutic medical reasons, directly intended amputations, mutilations, and sterilizations performed on innocent persons are against the moral law.91
2298 In times past, cruel practices were commonly used by legitimate governments to maintain law and order, often without protest from the Pastors of the Church, who themselves adopted in their own tribunals the prescriptions of Roman law concerning torture. Regrettable as these facts are, the Church always taught the duty of clemency and mercy. She forbade clerics to shed blood. In recent times it has become evident that these cruel practices were neither necessary for public order, nor in conformity with the legitimate rights of the human person. On the contrary, these practices led to ones even more degrading. It is necessary to work for their abolition. We must pray for the victims and their tormentors.
Skinny Puppy’s album The Weapon, released in 2013, was inspired by their experience with the DoJ. This video is disturbing, but no more disturbing than what the government is doing in our name. Kind of sad when heavy metal bands are doing more to call out evildoers and evildoing than the Christian Churches.