UN condemns US plan to livestream execution of Texas Fort Hood base gunman

The United Nations on Friday condemned US plans to livestream the execution of former US Army Major Nidal Hasan, who killed 13 people at the Fort Hood military base on November 5, 2009, calling the move “abhorrent” and warning that it could violate the prohibition against torture.

“These kinds of public executions we've seen in other countries, whether it's Iran or Afghanistan ... can constitute a form of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, or punishment,” UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told a daily briefing at the UN headquarters in New York. “Showing it live is tantamount ... to it being public, and could be a violation of the prohibition against torture,” he added. “A government executing someone in public, or in front of live cameras, frankly, is abhorrent.”

Hasan is scheduled to become the first person executed by a US military firing squad since 1945. The execution is set for December 3 at the sprawling Texas military base where he opened fire with a handgun inside a medical facility.

Meanwhile, a former US Army sergeant who survived the shooting backed Hasan’s execution but expressed reservations about livestreaming it. “The method is befitting because other methods like lethal injection would be doing him a favour,” Alonzo Lunsford, who was shot seven times by Hasan, told the BBC. However, Lunsford opposed broadcasting the entire execution uncensored to the public, adding that he personally disagreed with the move, though he acknowledged that the decision went beyond his individual beliefs. He also stated that he would be present at the execution.

US defence secretary Pete Hegseth had announced that the public would be able to watch the execution via livestream, arguing that it was “important for people to see the consequences of this kind of crime.” If carried out as planned, the execution would mark the first public execution in the United States in nearly a century.