Retrospective Season: Year of the Torturer

As part of our retrospective season Mike Dodds presents a film from the World in Action series.

 

This World in Action special (1973) was produced in the wake of an Amnesty International report on torture following a conference for its abolition.  

 

In retrospect the film now acts a precursor to the events of today where torture is still very much in evidence.

 

The production team spent two weeks traveling through Europe to investigate how the Amnesty report was received by those involved and includes a rare interview with General Jacques Émile Massu (The Butcher of Algiers) who willingly admitted to the use of torture on suspected members of the FLN during the Algerian war of independence, even though he insisted he would never subject anyone to any treatment that he had not first tried out on himself.