Public and live execution in the United States: Australia will do “everything it can” to prevent “totally despicable” retransmission

Australia will do “everything it can” to prevent a live broadcast of the “totally despicable” execution of a US prisoner from being accessible in the country, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Tuesday.

Nidal Hasan, 56, is to be shot on December 3 at the Fort Hood base in Texas (south), where he killed 13 people, including 12 soldiers, and injured more than 30 others in 2009, an attack inspired by the jihadist organization Al-Qaeda. This killing will be the first carried out by the American army since 1961 and the first by firing squad since 1945.

A Pentagon official told AFP last week that the execution would be broadcast live, after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said: "We will make sure that people can watch it, that it is public."

Anthony Albanese told Australian national channel ABC that he had a “social responsibility” to prevent its broadcast. “I don't understand why anyone would want to attend such an event, let alone stand by and allow children and families to have access to it,” the Prime Minister said.

Australia's internet regulator said it did not have the power to prevent the execution from being broadcast online. The Prime Minister explained that it was “not as simple as flipping a switch”. But he said his government would make it clear to social media platforms that “this has no place in our country.” “If there is anything we can do, we will do it, I guarantee you,” Mr Albanese insisted.

Environment Minister Murray Watt also said he found the execution "absolutely repugnant", while the project has generated a rare consensus across the country's political spectrum to oppose it. The plan to broadcast Nidal Hasan's execution online has sparked widespread criticism, both in the United States and internationally. Such a live broadcast would constitute a form of “torture”, warned the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, reiterating its position regarding “public executions in Afghanistan and Iran”.