Dr Kasey McCall-Smith moderates panel discussion at Glasgow Film Festival

Edinburgh Law School’s Dr Kasey McCall-Smith was recently invited to moderate a panel at the Glasgow Film Festival following a screening of ‘Eminent Monsters’, a new documentary by BAFTA-award winning director Stephen Bennett. 

Dr McCall-Smith is currently engaged in an RSE funded project titled ‘Torture on Trial’, which is generating interest in the wider community.

The panel discussion included Liam Shannon, one of the infamous 'hooded men' who were tortured by the British military in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, and Moazzam Begg, the UK citizen who was detained and tortured by the US CIA on black sites and in Guantanamo for three years until his release until 2005. Both were featured in the film, which explores the link of the Scottish psychiatrist Ewen Cameron to the torture used in Northern Ireland and in the War on Terror. Cameron, who developed many of the psychological torture techniques used by the CIA as part of the their enhanced interrogation programme, was paid by the US and Canadian governments after WWII to expand his research into the effects of sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation, and white noise on the mental stability of individuals.

A few days prior to the film screening, Dr McCall-Smith presented aspects of her research alongside Guantanamo defense lawyer, Alka Pradhan, and Daragh Murray of the University of Essex at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law (BIICL). The panel explored Guantanamo military commissions from an insider's perspective.