Monday, November 5th, 2007
French Journalist Henri Alleg Describes His Torture Being Waterboarded by French Forces During Algerian War
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Three crucial members of the Senate Judiciary Committee said this weekend they would back the nomination of Attorney General hopeful Michael Mukasey despite his refusal to condemn waterboarding as a form of torture. Henri Alleg, an 86-year-old journalist subjected to waterboarding by French troops during the war for Algerian independence, says no civilized country should allow it.
Just days ahead of Tuesday’s committee vote, Pennsylvania Republican Senator Arlen Specter joined Democratic Senators Charles Schumer of New York and Dianne Feinstein of California in supporting Mukasey’s nomination. Mukasey’s confirmation had been in doubt as five of the panel’s ten Democrats had lined up against him after he refused to state categorically that waterboarding is illegal. But Schumer and Feinstein’s support now virtually guarantees that a majority of the committee will recommend his confirmation.
Waterboarding is the practice of pouring water over the cloth-covered face of a prisoner while they are strapped down to induce the sensation of drowning. It’s been used by some of the world’s most repressive regimes, from the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia to the military dictatorships of Chile and Argentina. The French used waterboarding during their occupation of Algeria in the 1950s and 60s ......
We now turn to a real-life survivor of the Algerian war of independence. Henri Alleg is a French journalist who was arrested by French paratroopers in Algeria in 1957. Alleg was sympathetic to Algerian independence. He was interrogated for a month, questioned under torture, and repeatedly subjected to waterboarding.
Alleg described his ordeal in an essay titled “The Question,” which was published in 1958 with a preface by Jean-Paul Sartre. The book was subsequently banned in France and legalized only after the war ended in 1962. Henri Alleg, 86-year-old survivor of torture by French paratroopers, joins me now on the phone from Paris, France.
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