cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/86204
As poll numbers showed the vast majority of Americans were repulsed by the idea of livestreaming the execution of Nidal Hasan, the former military psychiatrist convicted of killing 13 people at Fort Hood in 2009, President Donald Trump backed away from the plan Thursday.
On Truth Social, Trump wrote that he still believed that “streaming the execution for all to see might have been a strong deterrent for the World to witness how America deals with Terrorists and SCUM like Hasan.”
But the president suggested the White House had received word that “many very good and well meaning people would rather not watch him die, through streaming, or through any other visual device,” and said the execution by firing squad, scheduled for December 3, will not be publicly displayed.
Trump announced the decision hours after a nationwide poll by The Washington Post, ABC News, and Ipsos found that 8 in 10 Americans opposed the plan to livestream Hasan’s state killing, regardless of their views on the death penalty in general or on executing the convicted murderer.
Nearly 70% of people who supported the execution said it should not be livestreamed. The plan was strongly opposed across the political spectrum, with 91% of Democrats, 83% of independents, and 64% of Republicans disapproving of the proposal—aggressively pushed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth—to make the killing viewable to anyone.
Among Republicans who identified themselves as part of Trump’s far-right MAGA movement, 55% said they opposed the livestream plan.
Men who were identified as MAGA were the only group in which a majority supported the livestream; 57% said they approved of it.
Hegseth said last week that the execution would be streamed “because people need to understand that there’s serious consequences for these types of things.” Trump expressed strong approval of the plan, while Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic convert, tepidly attempted to distance himself from it, saying he would not personally watch the execution. A number of Republicans in Congress spoke out against the plan.
While Hegseth defended the plan as one that was aimed at deterring violent crimes like the Fort Hood killing, fascism scholar Ruth Ben-Ghiat said a livestreamed execution could only be “an attempt to normalize extreme violence, ritualize violence, militarize the country, and make violence entertaining so when they ask you to commit violence in their name, you will be ready.”
The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed horror at the proposal, saying it “would breach the absolute prohibition of torture,” and Amnesty International called it “barbaric and deeply shocking.”
In the Post/ABC/Ipsos poll released Thursday, one independent in Minnesota, Lawrence Sagstetter, said the livestream would be “going too far.”
“It’s just going to cause more of an uproar, not only nationally but internationally," he said.
A Republican from New York, Bruce Gonka, said Hegseth’s plan was “all for shock, and we don’t need that. We’re better than that.”
From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.
Nidal Hasan, the former military psychiatrist convicted of killing 13 people at Fort Hood in 2009
Ah so that’s why he killed all of those people. Imagine if you had to hear the most uncensored foul shit that these soldiers get up to.
“The family I gunned down in their beds haunts me every night”
Welcome back, Frantz Fanon.
Yeah, is there any writing on it from this angle?
“We’re better than that.”
The vestigial social nerve fires at last: they finally begin to worry about what all this says about them
Also
Bruce Gonka
This world isn’t fucking real what the fuck
Bruce Gonka
50/50 odds it’s just Gorka with the goatee shaved off.
The other 50% is that he looks like a trash bin but is actually a giant lithium battery
Greetings Mr. Chapo! It is I! Bruce Gonka!
one independent in Minnesota, Lawrence Sagstetter, said the livestream would be “going too far.”
Trump found out the guy is in a wheelchair and he knows it would make bad TV
Too gauche for Chudtown
Too chuddy for Gauchetown
what is so different, treatlerites? he is not on a boat in the carribean? or maybe not a funeral in yemen?
the only way to deter violence at Ft. Hood would be to nuke the site from orbit.
Mask on.
Killing someone behind closed doors doesn’t make it any better. Feels like a nice way for the liberals to stick their fingers in their ears and pretend it isn’t happening.
as usual they’re more offended by the appearances than the actual problems
I’m more surprised when they walk back heinous shit than when they announce it in the first place
streaming the execution for all to see might have been a strong deterrent for the World to witness how America deals with Terrorists and SCUM like Hasan
made me do a double take
Fucking cowards.
🌮🌮🌮
Afraid of making him a martyr
The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed horror at the proposal, saying it "would breach the absolute prohibition of torture,
Why is it only torture to do it on the internet?
Well I followed the citations back to Nidal Hasan Execution Livestream: Is It Legal Under International Law? which mentions torture but I don’t think it’s really the main concept although it’s a really long article and I didn’t read it.
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) permits capital punishment under strict conditions in states that have not abolished it. Article 7, however, prohibits torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment. The UN Human Rights Committee has expressly identified public executions as incompatible with Article 7 and considers executions carried out in violation of that provision to constitute arbitrary deprivations of life under Article 6 (Human Rights Committee, 2019, para. 40). The legality of a death sentence does not remove the international legal restrictions governing its implementation.
