Waterboarding scene by The Pen


Though still not even in official release, YouTube is already trying
to suppress "The Last War Crime," a new full-length feature film
about indicting Dick Cheney for torture. And by the way, isn't that
something billions of people want to see?

This is an urgent, all hands on deck call for all our participants to
submit a special action page to send messages of protest directly to
YouTube, to protest their blocking of the video.

Action Page: http://www.peaceteam.net/youtube_protest.php

The purported reason for banning the clip was that it contained
"nudity" or something like that. This is just completely ridiculous.
There is no actual nudity in the video at all . . . none whatsoever.
The actor playing the detainee in the scene wore a swimmer's style
bathing suit the entire time. And we positioned the female
interrogator character so that view of his midriff was blocked
entirely in any case. And if they are complaining this scene is
sexually suggestive, they need to ban half the rest of the movies on
their site.

No, what really happened here mostly likely was ONE right wing
political operative must have made a complaint. And of course that
was all it took for big corporate YouTube to yank the plug on our
movie. It's now going to take thousands of your voices to turn this
back around. Please submit the action page now.

Action Page: http://www.peaceteam.net/youtube_protest.php

The good news is that we have built our video server at substantial
expense so you can again see this now very controversial clip for
yourself on the page above. This is the new and improved final cut
highlighting the dynamic work of Christina Linhardt, a prominent Los
Angeles performing artist and activist.

The bandwidth for the new server will also be costly to maintain.
YouTube may not want to permit their visitors to see it, but that's
not going to stop us. It's a very important scene in the movie and
not just because its objective is to condemn waterboarding, long
recognized to be a form of torture unequivocally. The clip also
serves to remind everyone that the sexual taunting of helpless and
mostly innocent captives, in places like Abu Ghraib, was a deliberate
part of a de facto program to degrade people in violation of the
Geneva Conventions.

And after you submit the action page feel free to request one of the
beautiful bumper stickers for the upcoming movie. As always, you can
have one for no charge, not even shipping, just by submitting the
form. But if you CAN make a donation of any amount, to help defray
some of these new server costs, please do so. We do not want to run
out of bandwidth with so many people wanting to see this movie.

Shame on YouTube for censoring this clip, which we believe, and we
think you will agree, is part of an important cultural and artistic
statement of social commentary. We have already submitted the movie
to the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, the Cinequest Film
Festival, the Ann Arbor Film Festival, SXSW, the Cleveland
International Film Festival, the Tribeca Film Festival, and the San
Francisco International Film Festival, seven of the top breakout
venues for serious works of new film art.

And shame on YouTube further for deleting our waterboarding scene in
such a summary and authoritarian manner. YouTube makes no provision
on their site to challenge their own unilateral dictates. We are
demanding that YouTube immediately restore the wrongfully deleted
waterboarding scene from "The Last War Crime" movie, and put in place
an accessible review process so nothing like this can ever happen
again.