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Torture: The Politics And The Human Consequences

Little Brown-2015
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Little Brown-2015
Credit Little Brown-2015 / Little Brown-2015
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Little Brown-2015

Mohamedou Ould Slahi is an innocent man who spent 14 years detained and tortured in Guantanamo Bay.

A conversation with ex Gauntanamo prisoner Mohamedou Ould Slahi and Frank Goldsmith, co-chair of the North Carolina Commission on Inquiry of Torture, about their efforts to document North Carolina’s role in extraordinary rendition.

He was released last fall and has since returned to his home country of Mauritania. He published a book while he was still imprisoned called “Guantanamo Diary”  (Little Brown/ 2015). It details some of the extreme torture tactics he endured, including exposure to nearly-freezing temperatures and physical and sexual abuse. His narrative illuminates how a variety of United States officials and a North Carolina-registered company are complicit in his rendering and torture.

Credit Mohamedou Ould Salahi / Mohamedou Ould Salahi
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Mohamedou Ould Salahi

Host Frank Stasio is joined by Slahi to discuss his experience in Guantanamo and reflections on torture as a war tactic. He also talks with Frank Goldsmith, co-chair of the North Carolina Commission on Inquiry of Torture, about their efforts to document North Carolina’s role in extraordinary rendition.

Copyright 2017 North Carolina Public Radio

Anita Rao is the host and creator of "Embodied," a live, weekly radio show and seasonal podcast about sex, relationships & health. She's also the managing editor of WUNC's on-demand content. She has traveled the country recording interviews for the Peabody Award-winning StoryCorps production department, founded and launched a podcast about millennial feminism in the South, and served as the managing editor and regular host of "The State of Things," North Carolina Public Radio's flagship daily, live talk show. Anita was born in a small coal-mining town in Northeast England but spent most of her life growing up in Iowa and has a fond affection for the Midwest.
Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.