May 14th 2025 – 13:30-14:30 (UK time)
Dr Shereen Fernandez (LSE)
Chair: Dr Jeffrey Whyte (Lancaster)
SPIN is delighted to welcome Dr Shereen Fernandez (LSE) to discuss secrecy and redaction practices in the War on Terror. All welcome. The event will be held online, through Zoom. Please email secrecyresearch@gmail.com for an invite link.
Dr Shereen Fernandez – Secrecy and Redaction in the War on TerrorSecrecy played a defining role in shaping surveillance practices and policing during the War on Terror. The haunting photos from the 2004 Abu Ghraib prison scandal is one way in which we can understand how secrecy functioned in the War on Terror, as only through the publication of the photos was the extent of torture and abuse of Iraqi prisoners made public knowledge. Other ways in which secrecy was maintained during the War on Terror was through the operation of ‘black site’ prisons, where those suspected of terrorism were detained beyond public scrutiny and legal oversight as well as the detention of almost a thousand Muslim men at Guantánamo Bay (GTMO) prison, where key information about detainee treatment was deliberately withheld. Additionally, heavily redacted policies by the US administration conceals the extent of state actions under the guise of national security. In this talk, I explore the political function of redaction, arguing that it is used as a mechanism of secrecy and a tool of invisibility. Drawing on the autobiographical account of former GTMO detainee Mohamedou Ould Slahi, I examine how redaction was used to shield interrogators who engaged in torture, obscuring both individual accountability and the broader structures of state violence.
Dr Shereen Fernandez is currently teaching and researching at LSE. Her research is focused on the political geography of the War on Terror and the lives of Muslims. She is currently working on the implications of Artificial Intelligence on Muslims and has published extensively on the globality of Islamophobia.