IndyMedia - Vrij Media Centrum Nederland

Wanneer: 11/12/2014 - 14:06

Learning to resist interrogation is a skill that very few people understand and apply naturally. Interrogation techniques are bases on tricking the source into behavior that is healthy and normal in everyday conversation, but is bad in an interrogation situation.
The basic lessons from a standard pre-squatting infotalk are still very helpfull: as not saying anything to any question from an interrogator is a very good legitimate strategy. However, many people still fall into 'talking traps'.

Although most activists in the Netherlands will probably never be interrogated by the CIA or US army officials, it might be usefull to study some of their interrogation techniques because many law enforcement agencies base their own techniques on these techniques.

In recent years many activists have done considerable harm to themselves and their peers by giving away important information to the authorities. Many times authorities (especially dutch police investigators) have used techniques and standards from the HUMINT (HUMan INTelligence) interrogation handbook of the US army: FM 2.22-3:

http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm2-22-3.pdf

It is a long manual on the basic logistics, techniques and psychological background used by the US army. Activists can use this manual to become aware of these techniques and develop ways to defer them.
The basic lessons from a standard pre-squatting infotalk are still very helpfull, as not saying anything to any question from an interrogator is a very good legitimate strategy. However, many people still fall into 'talking traps'. Starting from chapter 8 (page 8-1 of the manual, page 129 in the pdf)
This is the first article of a -hopefully- larger series on skills for activists. We will add specific ways to resist interrogation in following days.

Love and resistance,
World Radical Education Collective.