A workshop on the consequences of torture
| What is it about? This
workshop enables participants to develop empathy with those who have been
tortured. Through this workshop, participants use interactive activities to
explore the effect of torture on a person, family, community and country. | Why
this workshop? Sometimes people
feel detached from topics like torture because it is outside of their
experience and they don’t know people that have been affected by it. The
purpose of this workshop is to engage participant’s emotions through creating
sensitivity to the potential effects of torture. |
Required
Materials or Facilities Post-its; Flip-chart paper; White-board; Soft
and permanent markers; Role play cards (see below, or select other cases from
the ‘take action’ web link provided at the end of this workshop). | Additional ideas If you do not have enough resources (post
its, boards, etc.) you may do the activity just through discussion and using
the discussion prompts. The only resources you do need are the role cards for
the game. You can also use the character as the basis of a story, poem or art
project if the participants wanted to develop a creative response to the
issue of torture. |
| Group size: 6 or more
participants | Time required: Approximately 2
hours |
Suggested introduction
It can be a good idea to start with an ice-breaker or a team-building
activity that enables participants to become familiar and more comfortable with
each other. It will then be easier for them to share personal thoughts and
experiences. You could invite participants to write 3 – 4 statements about
themselves on post-it notes (e.g. favourite place/movie/book; an embarrassing
experience; a famous person they would most like to meet; their most important
possession) and then the whole group has to guess which participant wrote which
statement.
Personal Experiences
1- Invite participants to consider
the questions below by asking or displaying them. Depending on your group you
could ask them in a verbal discussion but you may also wish to ask participants
to consider their answers quietly and write any responses they want to share on
post-its to stick up on a wall. Once people have added post-its you can invite
everyone to read the responses, and then ask if anyone would like to discuss
the answer they have written.
| What do you know about torture? Have you ever experienced torture
in your life? Has someone you know been tortured
and how did you feel about this? How do you feel about someone you
don’t know being tortured? At this stage, how, if at all, how
would you like to be involved in Amnesty International’s Stop Torture
campaign? |
Create a character
2- On a whiteboard or large piece
of paper ask one of the participants to draw a stick diagram of a person. Ask
the participants to give the stick person a name, a gender, a family, a city
they live in and a nationality. The group will need to use their imagination to
create a character and bring the character to life, so they might want to add
other details like favourite food, sport, films etc. If you did the
suggested ice-breaker the group might want to use this for inspiration or even
attribute some of the participant responses to the stick-person.
Ask participants to imagine a life
for the person. You can choose a range of relevant questions, such as:
| Who is in their family and what are
their relationships like? Do they enjoy their job? What do they like to do in their
city and their country? What plans do they have for their
future? |
When the group decide answers they write them on post-its, ideally in a
bright cheerful colour, and display them around the stick diagram.
3- Ask participants to imagine the
person’s relationship to the society. Again, facilitators can choose a range of
questions, such as:
| What does the person think of their
government? What do they think of the police
and other security agencies? How do they think the police should
tackle crime and make society safe? What do they think about the future
of their country? |
Invite the group to stick their answers up on post-its around the
person.
Role Play
5- Divide the participants into
pairs and distribute the role-play cards on Worksheet One. Ask pairs to read
through the card. One of them needs to play the role of the relative describing
the events on the card. The other takes the role of interviewer. The
interviewer needs think of sensitive questions that will help find out how the
person feels about what happened. The person playing the role needs to take
time to really imagine how it would feel for this to happen to someone in their
family.
6- Give the pairs 10 minutes to
prepare and practice a short role-play, and then show some or all the
role-plays to the group, depending on time.
7- After the activity allow each
pair to discuss how they felt during this activity and share some of their
thoughts with the group.
After Torture
8- Ask the group to select one
of the five cases in the role-play activity to consider in this exercise. You
could select one of the role-plays that have been shown to the group. First
ensure that everyone knows what happened in this case.
9- Invite the group to imagine
that the events described in the case happened to your imaginary character. Ask
them to go back to the original post-its they had put on the stick diagram and
see whether they think this would remain the same after experiencing this
torture. Would the character feel / think / act differently? If the original
diagram needs to be changed the participants need to place a post-it of a
different (ideally more neutral) colour over the top and on this write why this
part of their life is affected.
10- Look at the effect on the
character’s life. Discuss which aspects might have changed most dramatically
and which might have remained the same.
Debrief and Reflections
11- Reflect upon the issue of
torture by leading a discussion using the following questions:
| What is the first thing that comes
to mind when thinking about torture? Do you think this workshop has
altered your immediate response to the idea of torture? After this exercise, do you think
you will react differently next time you hear or read about torture in the
media? Has taking part in the workshop
altered how you want to be involved with the Stop Torture campaign? |
Take Action Now @ http://amnesty.org/ar/stoptorture
This workshop was adapted from the ‘Human Rights
Education Guide for Stop Torture Campaign’ available @ www.empoweragainsttorture.net
Role
Play Cards
| Card I: Raif Badawi- Saudi
Arabia Raif is one of many activists in Saudi Arabia persecuted
for expressing their views online. Facebook and Twitter are incredibly
popular in a country where people can’t voice their opinions openly in
public. The authorities have responded to this increase in online debate by
monitoring social media sites and even trying to ban applications such as
Skype and WhatsApp. |
| Raif Badawi was
jailed for 10 years in May 2014 after starting a website for social and political
debate in Saudi Arabia. He was charged with creating the ‘Saudi Arabian
Liberals’ website and insulting Islam. His sentence also included 1,000
lashes, a 10-year travel ban, and a ban on appearing on media outlets. The charges related
to articles Raif wrote criticising religious authorities in Saudi Arabia, as
well as pieces written by others which were published on his website. The
prosecution had called for him to be tried for ‘apostasy’ (when a person
abandons their religion), which carries the death sentence. |
Card
II: Daniel Quintero- Venezuela Daniel is one of many who have
complained of torture and other cruel treatment in Venezuela. The authorities appear to have targeted people who they
believe took part in mass protests across the country earlier this year. |
Daniel Quintero,
21, was beaten, intimidated and threatened with rape by members of
Venezuela’s national guard, after he was arrested on the way home from an
anti-government demonstration in February 2014. “They kicked and punched me in the
face and ribs, and hit me on the forehead with the butts of their guns,” he
told Amnesty later. “They all queued up to hit me. One of them whipped me on
my left shoulder with a leather cord.” He was stripped to his underwear,
handcuffed and forced to spend nine hours doubled up with his hands touching
his ankles. If he moved, they beat him. Daniel
told Amnesty he was repeatedly humiliated, insulted and threatened. At one
point, the commanding officer “told me they were going to burn me. He had a
can of petrol, wires and matches. The whole army surrounded me while he hit
me nine times with his baton.” |
Card III: Mohammed Al-Roken- United Arab Emirates His conviction followed years of
harassment and intimidation from the authorities. Then, in March 2011, he and
132 others – including academics, judges and students – signed a petition
calling for democratic reform in the UAE. The government responded with a
fierce attack on activists, including waves of arrests. |
| He was one of 69 people convicted of
forming a secret organization aimed at overthrowing the government, following
a blatantly unfair mass trial of 94 activists. In the run-up to the trial, Mohammed
and his co-defendants – known as the ‘UAE 94’ – were denied access to a
lawyer and kept in solitary confinement. Some told the judge they had been
tortured, and “confessions” obtained through torture were used as evidence in
court. They were all denied the right to appeal, which contravenes
international law. As a lawyer, Mohammed took on human rights cases
nobody else would touch. He has long been a supporter of Amnesty but now
faces prison for working tirelessly to defend people’s human rights. |