2. EXERCISES FOR DISCUSSION
2.1 HUMAN RIGHTS: Are these human rights respected in your country? Can you think of countries or parts of the world where they are not?
- a fair trial
- freedom of expression
- education
- religious practice
- work
- life
2.2 EXPRESS YOUR OPINION:
- I strongly believe capital punishment is never acceptable.
- I strongly believe capital punishment should be a part of all criminal justice systems.
DEATH PENALTY/JAILS DISCUSSION: Here are some questions you can try asking yourself before you come to our discussion on Wednesday:
a. What springs to mind when you hear the term 'death penalty'?
b. What do you think about capital punishment?
c. What do you think about the woman in the article?
d. Do you think the British government should do more to help?
e. Does Samantha becoming pregnant in prison change her situation?
f. What can we do about the world´s inhumane prisons?
g. What does "Nothing that happens in that prison is voluntary" mean?
h. What do you think Laotian prisons are like?
i. Do you know of a jail with a good reputation? What are prisons in your country like?
j. How can we rid prisons of guards who abuse prisoners?
k. Do you think Samantha will receive a fair trial?
l. Why do you think Laos has decided to put Samantha on trial before she has a chance to get a lawyer?
m. If Laos executes Samantha, are they also murdering her unborn child?
n. What would you do if you were mistakenly imprisoned?
o. Is the death penalty state-sponsored murder?
p. Do you think there are some extreme situations when the death penalty is OK?
PREPARING A DISCUSSION IS FUNDAMENTAL:
THIS MUST BE DONE IN TWO DIRECTIONS:
FIRST, YOU NEED TO LEARN NEW VOCABULARY AND EXPRESSIONS THAT YOU WILL HAVE TO USE FOR THE DISCUSSION.
SECONDLY, YOU HAVE TO PREPARE THE TOPIC BY LOOKING UP INFORMATION IN THE INTERNET, BOOKS, ENCYCLOPAEDIAS.
THIS WAY YOU WILL FEEL MUCH MORE CONFIDENT AND AT THE SAME TIME YOU WILL HAVE MUCH MORE TO TALK ABOUT.
FINAL TASK:
HERE IS ONE FINAL TASK THAT YOU MAY DO AND THIS WAY YOU WILL COVER THE FOUR SKILLS YOU MUST IMPROVE WHEN LEARNING A LANGUAGE: LISTENING, READING, SPEAKING AND WRITING.
Choose one of the following topics:
1. Are you for or against the Death Penalty. Express your opinion.
2. What purpose and function should prisons fulfil in our current society?
This week I feel a little bit pessimistic, so when I read this kind of events (this is not the hardest one) I see how human beings, even in our times, still are like beasts. Our education has been based on ethical values and we thought (at least me) the rest of the people and the world accompanied us in this way towards the good. It was as battle in which criminals would be defeated.
ReplyDeleteNevertheless, violence is taking revenge in 21st century and, unlike that famous song 'Love is in the air', somebody has change the first word of the song title and we are walking backwards and loosing some of our achievements.
For example, what happens with human rights in many of the countries of the world or sexist violence? They, far from disappearing, are constantly on the media.
Maybe I was a utopian person when I thought things would be better day by day.
PS. This is not exactly the topic but I suppose never mind.
Until the last century, there were no doubt about Death Penalty and everybody believed in the ancient law an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. However, this situation has changed and nowadays, there are more and more countries that the Death Penalty has been abolished.
ReplyDeleteAlthough the number of people who is against the Death penalty is increasing day by day, there are still in large number of followers that defend this subject. For instance, they maintain the idea that the crime is less in countries which this law is in force. Or, in addition to that, they are absolutely convinced that it is necessary in order to avoid some kind of criminal actions.
On the other hand, every time more and more people defend the opposite idea and nobody has the right to kill a person, even the law of a country has not that right. Moreover, if an accused is killed by mistake who is able to raise him from the dead?
In conclusion, I believed that nobody can stipulate who deserves to live and who doesn’t because the life is the most important thing we have and not only a polite idea.
I want to start this piece of writing with a clean, easy statement: I’m against death penalty. I don’t believe in that idea of justice based in such a way of killing human beings. Like it or not, criminals are part of humankind and must be subjects of the same rights than the rest of citizens. The State ought to protect population from offenders and lawbreakers, but it should never forget the rights that make us “humans”. And the first one is the right to life: “everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person” (3rd article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights). Any power on Earth can give you back your life, once it has been taken. There isn’t any turning point when life is ended. So we, as a society, must to protect life: this is source, the power plant for justice, understood as a way to raise happiness for the whole society.
ReplyDeleteI cannot see any advantage in death penalty: criminals’ blood stains us when we kill them. You are a murderer, so I’ll become another one, by the force of law. This is the bare idea. But usually law (which is blind) tends to fail when the question is to find the right person, the true murderer. Judges and magistrates see so late that they were wrong. And nothing can be done to fix the fatal error.