Outrage over US military plan to livestream firing squad execution

WASHINGTON: Condemnation of the Pentagon’s plan to livestream the firing squad execution of a convicted military base mass shooter escalated Friday (Oct 9), with the UN saying it would amount to torture and US lawmakers from both parties slamming the move.

Nidal Hasan’s execution – which is scheduled for Dec 3 at Fort Hood, where he gunned down 13 people in 2009 – is set to be the first by US military firing squad since 1945.

Senator Thom Tillis, a member of US President Donald Trump’s Republican Party, said Hasan should be put to death, but that streaming it would be “beyond disgusting”.

“Public executions are what oppressive dictatorships like Iran and Afghanistan do,” Tillis said.

Representative Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said the plan is “disturbing and makes a mockery of our legal system”.

A Pentagon official told AFP the execution would be streamed live, after US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said “we’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public.”

Later, Hegseth wrote “Correct” when retweeting a media report about the planned livestream.

The UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights condemned the move, saying in a message sent to AFP on Friday that “the livestreaming of an execution is tantamount to a public execution and would breach the absolute prohibition of torture.”

Archbishop Paul Coakley, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, said it was a “barbaric promotion of a culture of death and must be reconsidered.”