More than 50 people crowded into Pigott Hall last night to watch Amnesty International’s screening of “The Road to Guantanamo,” a docudrama about Guantanamo Bay detainment camp prisoners that elicited strong reactions from the audience.

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Alex Greenburg

Students attending last night’s screening of “The Road to Guantanamo” tried to make their voices heard by participating in a letter-writing campaign urging American officials to stop alleged human rights abuses.

The film chronicles the detention of Ruhal Amhed, Asif Iqbal and Shafiq Rasul — three men suspected by the U.S. government of being involved with Al-Qaeda — who were detained at Guantanamo’s Camp X-Ray and Camp Delta from 2001 until their 2004 release.

Amnesty International hoped the film would spark campus-wide discussion and awareness about the use of torture and other human rights violations.

“Such abuses are not accidents but the predictable results of our policy decisions,” said Galen Panger ‘07, the group’s campaign coordinator.

In particular, Panger pointed to the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which allows the U.S. to hold detainees classified as enemy combatants indefinitely without charging them with a crime.

The film’s graphic depiction of torture by Americans and British military personnel prompted groans and shudders from the audience.

Colby France ‘08 said the film was emotionally moving.

“Although I had heard about the Guantanamo Bay scandal,” he said, “I never knew how terrible the abuses were.”

After the film, Amnesty International organizers urged students concerned with the U.S.’s detention policy to participate in what they called “urgent action,” a letter-writing campaign aimed at putting pressure on American government officials to reform detainment protocols and techniques. About 20 students signed these letters after the screening.