An execution by firing squad broadcast live on the Internet. The project announced Thursday by the Pentagon is causing heated controversy in the United States, even within Republican ranks. At issue: the possible retransmission, on December 3, of the killing of Nidal Malik Hasan, a former military psychiatrist convicted of killing 13 people and injuring 32 others in 2009, on the Fort Hood base, in Texas.
Donald Trump authorized the execution by shooting, but clarified Friday that he had not yet made a final decision regarding its broadcast. The project therefore remains uncertain. However, it is enough to raise a question that even divides supporters of capital punishment: can a democratic state transform an execution into a public spectacle?
“It’s beyond disgusting”
The protest does not only come from Democrats. Several conservative elected officials, although in favor of Hasan’s execution, strongly denounce its broadcast. “Hasan should be sentenced to death, but make his execution public and broadcast it live? It’s beyond disgusting,” says Republican Senator Thom Tillis. He recalls that public executions are particularly practiced in countries like Iran or Afghanistan and believes that they have no place in the United States.
His colleague Austin Scott, elected Republican from Georgia, considers that such a retransmission would amount to repeating the propaganda methods of the jihadists. Another conservative parliamentarian, Rob Bresnahan, insists on the respect due to the families of the victims, whose suffering should not become a spectacle.
Even commentator Howard Kurtz, a Fox News figure, questions this prospect. “Is this America?” he asks, according to the “Los Angeles Times”.
The return of a macabre spectacle
The affair revives the memory of an era that the United States seemed to have definitively passed. In the “Los Angeles Times”, historian Daniel LaChance, of Emory University, recalls that the last American public execution dates back to 1936. That year, some 20,000 people attended the hanging of Rainey Bethea, in Kentucky.
The event took on the appearance of a macabre carnival, helping to discredit public executions. Nearly a century later, technology would make it possible to give a killing a potentially global audience.
In a column published by “The Guardian”, columnist Paul Daley denounces this transformation of capital punishment into entertainment. His conclusion, deliberately provocative, sums up his indignation: “Pass the popcorn, Don and Pete!”, in reference to Donald Trump and the head of the Pentagon, Pete Hegseth.
Transparency or voyeurism?
Asked by the Associated Press, Deborah Denno, professor of law at Fordham University, believes that a retransmission could contribute to transparency. Showing the public what an execution actually entails would, according to her, fuel the debate on capital punishment.
Elisabeth Semel, a death penalty specialist at Berkeley, defends another reading. She questions respect for the dignity of the condemned and the motivations of the American administration. She emphasizes that she knows of no precedent where the State itself would have taken the initiative to broadcast an execution.
Brenner Fissell, professor of law at Villanova, suspects a desire to showcase American military power rather than an approach of transparency.
The risk of making a martyr
Retransmission could also produce an effect contrary to that sought by its promoters. According to CBS News, several experts fear that the images of the execution will allow Nidal Malik Hasan to appear as a martyr in the eyes of extremist sympathizers.
Democrat Jack Reed, an influential member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, shares this concern. He believes that such a broadcast could provide propaganda material to terrorist organizations hostile to the United States.
Military law professor Geoffrey Corn recalls that executions are normally subject to strict protocols, notably limiting the number of witnesses. A worldwide broadcast would radically disrupt this practice.
The UN denounces a violation of human rights
The controversy now extends beyond American borders. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights considers that an execution broadcast live would constitute a public execution and would violate the absolute ban on torture.
Legal appeals could further delay the procedure. Specialists emphasize in particular that the condemned person would have the means to contest the conditions of his execution.
