{"id":227031,"date":"2026-10-09T20:47:40","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T20:47:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/medieval-and-disturbing-us-plan-to-livestream-execution-elicits-global-condemnation-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-10-09T20:47:40","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T20:47:40","slug":"medieval-and-disturbing-us-plan-to-livestream-execution-elicits-global-condemnation-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/medieval-and-disturbing-us-plan-to-livestream-execution-elicits-global-condemnation-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Medieval\u2019 and \u2018disturbing\u2019: US plan to livestream execution elicits global condemnation – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pentagon said execution of Nidal Malik Hasan, who killed 13 people at Fort Hood in 2009, would be broadcast live
US politics live \u2013 latest updates<\/a>
The US is facing worldwide condemnation over a \u201cbarbaric\u201d plan to execute a disabled man by firing squad and livestream it to the public, with critics comparing the Trump administration<\/a> to dictatorships in Iran<\/a> and Afghanistan<\/a>.
The Pentagon confirmed on Thursday<\/a> that the execution of Nidal Malik Hasan, convicted of killing 13 people at a military base at Fort Hood in Texas<\/a> in 2009, would be livestreamed on 3 December.
The United Nations\u2019 office of the high commissioner for human rights<\/a> warned on Friday that broadcasting the killing would amount to a public execution and \u201cbreach the absolute prohibition of torture\u201d.
The plan also drew opprobrium from politicians, religious leaders and human rights advocates in the US and abroad. Hillary Clinton, the former US secretary of state, wrote on social media<\/a>: \u201cA barbaric idea, beneath our dignity as a country. Push back on this.\u201d
Yassamin Ansari, the first Iranian American Democrat elected to the US Congress, posted<\/a>: \u201cIn Trump\u2019s America, we\u2019re doing public executions now. WTF. This is what happens under brutal dictatorships like Iran and Afghanistan. It\u2019s all part of Trump\u2019s authoritarian takeover of the United States.\u201d
Britain, which abolished the death penalty in the 1960s, moved to distance itself from the execution. Bridget Phillipson, the UK\u2019s equalities minister and Labour party chair, told BBC Radio 4\u2019s Today programme that she found the concept \u201crather disturbing\u201d.
Phillipson stressed that the decision was a matter for the US government, adding: \u201cThey are a close ally. Does that mean that we support everything the US government does? No.\u201d
Under US military law, a president must approve an execution by firing squad. Trump did so on the recommendation of his defence secretary, Pete Hegseth<\/a>, according to the Pentagon.
JD Vance \u2013 a practicing Catholic \u2013 told reporters on Friday he wouldn\u2019t watch the livestreamed execution of Hasan, but stopped short of criticizing the administration\u2019s decision.
When asked how his Christian beliefs influence his view of the public execution, Vance dismissed controversy about the manner of execution and appeared to question whether the livestream will happen.
\u201cWhatever the controversy is about the method of the execution, I hope the people don\u2019t forget that this is a guy who brutally murdered a lot of innocent people,\u201d the US vice-president told reporters. \u201cThat said, if it\u2019s ultimately livestreamed, I\u2019m not going to be watching it.\u201d
Hegseth gleefully confirmed the livestream plan after previously saying that the execution would be public. Speaking to the conservative broadcaster Real America\u2019s Voice, he said people should be able to watch because they need to understand that there were \u201cserious consequences\u201d for such crimes.
Asked whether Hasan had made any final requests, Hegseth replied: \u201cDon\u2019t care. We\u2019ll see him on December 3.\u201d
Now 56, Hasan was sentenced to death by a military jury in 2013 after being convicted of 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder. Twelve of those killed and 30 of the wounded were soldiers.
The former army psychiatrist opened fire with a handgun at a medical facility at Fort Hood on 5 November 2009 as soldiers waited for medical checks before deployment. He was shot by a police officer during his arrest and left partly paralysed, and now uses a wheelchair.
The execution is expected to be the first by firing squad carried out by the US military<\/a> since 1945, when army private Eddie Slovik was executed for desertion during the second world war. The last US military execution of any kind took place in 1961, when John Bennett was hanged.
Hasan\u2019s case comes amid renewed scrutiny of capital punishment in the US following the botched lethal injection of Tennessee death-row prisoner Christa Pike<\/a> last week. Her lawyers said she awoke in hospital \u201cangry and confused\u201d and remained seriously ill and shackled to her hospital bed.
Media have sought to televise US executions \u2060in the past, but have been blocked by the courts. No other country is known to televise or livestream legal executions, experts said.
Indeed, public executions have largely disappeared around the world. Amnesty International recorded at least 17 in 2025, including 11 in Iran and six in Taliban-run Afghanistan.
In the US, executions have been conducted privately for about nine decades. The hanging of Rainey Bethea in Kentucky in 1936, witnessed by thousands, is generally regarded as the country\u2019s last public execution, although another hanging took place in Missouri the following year.
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Experts said there was no known precedent for livestreaming a legal execution. The execution of the Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh in 2001 was made available to victims\u2019 relatives through closed-circuit television, but was not broadcast publicly.
The proposed live stream has prompted criticism from religious leaders. Archbishop Paul Coakley, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, said it was a \u201cbarbaric promotion of a culture of death and must be reconsidered\u201d.
Politicians from both sides of the aisle also spoke out. Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives armed services committee, said the plan was \u201cdisturbing and makes a mockery of our legal system\u201d. The Democratic senator Chris Murphy described public executions as \u201cmedieval\u201d.
The Republican senator Thom Tillis said Hasan should face the death penalty but that broadcasting his execution was \u201cbeyond disgusting\u201d, arguing that public executions were associated with oppressive regimes.
Others warned that the spectacle would be counterproductive and act as a recruiting sergeant for US enemies seeking fresh propaganda.
Ned Price, a former deputy to the US representative to the United Nations, posted on X<\/a>: \u201cYou can take it from those of us who\u2019ve spent years working on terrorism: the surest way to spawn more radicalized zealots is to glorify violence, embrace a cult of death, and create a martyr for the cause.
\u201cOr take it from [al-Qaida] and ISIS, whose tactics offer the closest modern-day approximation of Hegseth\u2019s proposal. Either way, it\u2019s hard to conjure a more vivid example of his trademark performative bravado, which routinely damages America\u2019s image and, in this case, so ghoulishly leaves us more vulnerable.\u201d
Some experts have raised questions about whether the live stream could be challenged in court. Eugene Fidell, a military law specialist at Yale Law School, said Hasan could seek legal action to block the public display of his death.
Elisabeth Semel, co-director of the Death Penalty Clinic at the University of California, Berkeley, said the announcement raised serious questions about the dignity of the condemned prisoner and the government\u2019s motivation for staging such an unusual spectacle.
\u201cThis is a president who\u2019s about spectacle and that\u2019s, I think, precisely the message that he intends to deliver,\u201d she told the Associated Press<\/a>.
Justin Mazzola, deputy director of research at Amnesty International USA, said: \u201cLivestreaming the taking of a life by firing squad would only compound the cruelty of the death penalty and perpetuate the cycle of violence that the authorities purportedly seek to end.
\u201cThis announcement adds to the display of cruelty that we have just witnessed in the senseless pursuit of the execution of Christa Pike<\/a> in Tennessee. The US death penalty is irredeemably broken. It is high time that the US authorities, at all levels, use their power to show human rights leadership and end this ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment once and for all.\u201d
Other experts argued that public access could increase transparency around capital punishment. Deborah Denno, a death penalty specialist at Fordham University, told the AP that a live stream could make the process more transparent at a time when the botched execution in Tennessee had renewed questions about how the state puts prisoners to death.
It remains unclear whether Hasan will seek to challenge his execution in civilian court, a move that could significantly delay the proceedings.<\/p>\n

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