FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 4, 2013
Contact: Samantha Friedman, Rabinowitz/Dorf Communications, Office: (202) 265-3000; This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
12 p.m. TODAY: Silent Vigil Outside Oscar Nominees Luncheon
“Zero Dark Thirty” motivates people of faith to clear up misconceptions about efficacy of torture
LOS ANGELES – As Oscar nominees arrive TODAY, MONDAY, February 4, at the Beverly Hilton for the annual nominees luncheon, they will be greeted by a silent witness of human rights advocates, gathering to express their disapproval with the misleading manner which the film “Zero Dark Thirty” conveys that torture led to finding Osama bin Laden.
The 12-person silent witness is being convened by the National Religious Campaign Against Torture and Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace, a Los Angeles-area partner of NRCAT.
The vigil will send the message: “Zero tolerance for torture.”
“Hundreds of thousands of people will see ‘Zero Dark Thirty,’ and many of them will walk out of the theater believing they saw the truth,” said Rev. Richard Killmer, executive director of NRCAT. “But the film is not based on the facts about torture. It is a work of fiction that depicts graphic acts of torture; it is neither investigative journalism nor congressional oversight. The movie’s inappropriate – and dangerous – implication that the use of torture by U.S. authorities produced critical intelligence, including finding Osama bin Laden, is inaccurate.”
Press is encouraged to cover the vigil.
What: A 12-person silent vigil to protest the misleading message about the efficacy and acceptably of torture as conveyed in the controversial new film, “Zero Dark Thirty”
When: 12 p.m. Monday, February 4, 2013
Where: Outside the 2013 Academy Award Nominees’ Luncheon (which will be held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel)
The corners of Wilshire Blvd. and Merv Griffin Way AND N. Santa Monica Blvd. and Merv Griffin Way
Beverly Hills, CA 90210
Today’s protest is part of a national effort organized by NRCAT to share with the public across the country why “Zero Dark Thirty” is misleading and how Americans can learn more about the inefficient, illegal and immoral use of torture by U.S. authorities in the post-9/11 era.
NRCAT is advocating that the Senate Intelligence Committee, which late last year adopted a more than 6,000-page report on its three-year investigation into the U.S. government’s past use of torture during interrogations, publicize the torture report’s findings so that Americans know the truth about torture committed by their government in their name. Senators John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who are both members of the Intelligence Committee, have publicly refuted the idea that torture provided critical intelligence in the hunt for bin Laden. McCain, in fact, directly criticized “Zero Dark Thirty,” saying that the filmmakers fell “hook, line and sinker” for a false narrative about how the United States obtained the intelligence to track down bin Laden.
More information on NRCAT’s “Fact Not Fiction” campaign can be found online at www.nrcat.org/fact-not-fiction.
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