People will do absurd things if they're forced to, and they'll do even crazier things for a good cause. Iggy Pop must have felt a little bit of both pressures when he publicly declared himself a Belieber in a new Amnesty International advertisement.
In aninteresting new ad campaign for Amnesty International in Belgium, influential punk rock star Iggy Pop appears battered and bloody, with the quote "Justin Bieber is the future of rock 'n roll" attributed to him. Text underneath the grisly image reads "torture a man and he will tell you anything".
The text continues on to explain the image's meaning: "in addition to being inhumane, torture is ineffective".
Image: Dara Kushner/INFphoto.com
The ad is just one from a series that includes similarly ridiculous statements from other significant public figures. One sees German fashion magnate Karl Lagerfeld coerced into admitting that the summit of elegance is a Hawaiian shirt and flip-flops." Another, since removed in the interest of interfaith sensitivity, depicted a beaten-up Dalai Lama declaring that "a man who does not have a Rolex watch at 50 years old has failed in his life".
The campaign hopes to create public awareness of the fact that torture often elicits false confessions. Such confessions have been a source of controversy both in the United States and as part of many recent international crises, including the War on Terror.