LONDON, United Kingdom- Amnesty International UK has condemned the United States’ plan to livestream the execution by firing squad of Nidal Hasan, calling the proposal “barbaric and deeply shocking.”
The organisation’s UK chief executive, Kerry Moscogiuri, said the broadcast would turn the state’s taking of a life into a spectacle.
Amnesty opposes the death penalty in all cases, regardless of the crime or circumstances.
The Pentagon says Hasan’s execution is scheduled for December 3 at Fort Hood, Texas, where the 2009 shooting took place.
Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said the public would be able to watch the execution, and a Pentagon official confirmed it would be livestreamed.
Hasan, a former US Army psychiatrist and major, was convicted by a military court of killing 13 people and wounding 32 others at the military base on November 5, 2009.
He was sentenced to death in 2013.
The planned execution would be the first by the US military in more than 65 years and the first military firing squad execution since 1945.
The livestream proposal has drawn criticism beyond Amnesty.
The UN human rights office said broadcasting an execution would amount to a public execution and breach the absolute prohibition on torture, according to reporting on its response.
In Washington, President Donald Trump appeared to endorse the livestream when asked whether he had approved it, responding, “Absolutely.”
Vice-President JD Vance later said he was unsure whether the broadcast would happen and that he would not watch it.
The Federal Communications Commission chairman said he would defer to the Pentagon on whether television networks could air the execution.
The Pentagon’s livestream plan and any decision to broadcast it on television remain separate questions.
