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Sesame Street Music Used to Torture Guantanamo Bay Prisoners

May 31, 2012

Since the debut of Sesame Street back in 1969, millions of children have learned their ABC’s and 123’s with the help of Elmo, Grover, and Big Bird. However, according to The Huffington Post, the fun songs from Sesame Street have most recently been used to mentally break detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

The English-language Arabic news network Al Jazeera shone a light on the torture tactics used in the U.S. detention camp, bringing it to the attention of Christopher Cerf, the award-winning composer of Sesame Street.

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"My first reaction was this just can't possibly be true," he told Al Jazeera. "...Of course I didn't really like the idea that I was helping break down prisoners, but it was much worse when I heard later that they were actually using the music in Guantanamo to actually do deep, long-term interrogations and obviously to inflict enough pain on prisoners so they would talk."

The monsters’ melodies are being used on repeat, and sometimes in conjunction with heavy metal bands Metallica and AC/DC, rock & roll bands Aerosmith and Meat Loaf, pop singers Brittney Spears and Christina Aguilera, and even the “I Love You” song from Barney.

How do you feel about songs from popular children’s programs being used as a form of torture?

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