Group hopes to educate students about human rights by showing video

IU Amnesty International will offer a free showing of the 2006 film "The Road to Guantanamo" at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday in Wylie Hall, room 015. The film was directed by Michael Winterbottom and tells the story of three British men who were kept at the U.S.-controlled detainment camp in Cuba for nearly three years without ever being formally charged with any crime.\nIU Amnesty International President Joshua Horwitz hopes to educate students about human-rights issues in the world, and the Guantanamo Bay detainment, he said, is of the utmost importance.\n"This is giving America a lot of incredibility," Horwitz said. "If we can correct this, we can set America on a better path to helping the rest of the world in human-rights issues. We're just trying to do our part to educate people here at IU."\nHorwitz credits the film for forcing viewers to think about the situation in a new context.\n"It's a very good film to help educate people about aspects of Guantanamo that they have not considered," Horwitz said. "It shows how convoluted the situation can get and expresses to people what goes on behind the scene and gets that message out."\n"The Road to Guantanamo" took home the Silver Bear for Best Director at the Berlin International Film Festival in February. The film has inspired many to seek change at one of the world's most notorious prisons, according to the film's Web site.\nAmnesty International USA posted on the film's Web site its "Action Guide," a 16-page downloadable PDF document with information on the prison and some of its prisoners. Amnesty urges viewers to not only educate themselves, but take the step toward stopping human-rights violations. Still, the camp doesn't seem to be getting an extreme makeover anytime soon, Horwitz said.\n"It is important that the citizens of the United States stand up and say that we do not approve of what our government is doing," Horwitz said. "But about changing the larger picture, that will take time"