US Senators complain to Sony over 'grossly inaccurate' torture scenes in Osama film
London, Dec 20 (ANI)
US Senators have complained to the head of Sony Pictures Entertainment that the film 'Zero Dark Thirty' is misleading and 'grossly inaccurate' in its suggestion that torture produced the tip that led the American military to Osama bin Laden.
The members of the Senate Intelligence committee, Dianne Feinstein, Carl Levin and John McCain, said in a letter that Sony and its president and CEO, Michael Lynton, had an obligation to alter the movie and make clear that torture in the hunt for bin Laden was fiction and not based on fact.
"We are fans of many of your movies, and we understand the special role that movies play in our lives, but the fundamental problem is that people who see 'Zero Dark Thirty' will believe that the events it portrays are facts," the three senators wrote.
"The film therefore has the potential to shape American public opinion in a disturbing and misleading manner," they added.
According to the Telegraph, McCain has insisted that the waterboarding of Al-Qaeda's No. 3 leader, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, did not provide information that led to the bin Laden's compound in Pakistan.
Feinstein, who heads the Intelligence committee, backed up McCain's assessment that waterboarding of Mohammed did not produce the tip that led to bin Laden, the paper said.
"Use of torture in the fight against terrorism did severe damage to America's values and standing that cannot be justified or expunged. It remains a stain on our national conscience," the senators said in the letter.
"We cannot afford to go back to these dark times, and with the release of 'Zero Dark Thirty,' the filmmakers and your production studio are perpetuating the myth that torture is effective. You have a social and moral obligation to get the facts right," they added.