Songs of War

We follow a Sesame Street composer as he learns how his music has been used to torture detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

 Award-winning musician Christopher Cerf has composed music for the famous children's television show Sesame Street for 40 years. During this time, he has written more than 200 songs intended to help children learn how to read and write.

But these innocent children's songs were abused for inhumane purposes.

"It is music's capacity to take over your mind and invade your inner experience that makes it so terrifying as a potential weapon." - Thomas Keenan, the director of the  Human Right's Project at Bard College

In 2003, it transpired that US intelligence services had tortured detainees at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib with music from Sesame Street.

Human rights researcher Thomas Keenan explains: "Prisoners were forced to put on headphones. They were attached to chairs, headphones were attached to their heads, and they were left alone just with the music for very long periods of time. Sometimes hours, even days on end, listening to repeated loud music."

"The music was so loud," says Moazzam Begg, a former detainee at Guantanamo Bay and Bagram. "And it was probably some of the worst torture that they faced.

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