Opinionate course

8/6/15

I went to a course at York University to debate, discuss and act out court cases, focused around human rights. This event was part of the ISSP programme for gifted and talented students.

We started off by discussing the words 'propaganda' and 'homophobia' which related to the court case our group were finding out about. After we had some ideas of how these words related to human rights, we had a quick presentation about the laws that are put in place to protect us.

Our next activity was finding out about the court case. Our group were finding out about Kirill Kalugin and how he was arrested after holding up an LGBT+ flag. Next we got our roles in court, I was the judge which was a lot of fun!

Our final activity was becoming the jury and reaching a decision on whether he was guilty or not. We as a group all decided Kirill was not guilty, but in Russia it was different, he was jailed for 3 years for harmful propaganda in front of minors.

This was a thoroughly enjoyable course and I can't wait for tomorrow's session!