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The US Department of Defense plans to livestream on the internet the execution of a convicted killer, a move that has drawn criticism from across the political spectrum.
Former US Army Major Nidal Hasan is scheduled to be executed by firing squad on 3 December. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said showing the killing online would act as a deterrent against future attacks.
US President Donald Trump said on Friday that he approved of the plan but a determination still needed to be made. If it happens as planned, it would be the first-ever broadcast of a US execution.
The decision to show the graphic death has led to condemnations and questions about legality.
Nidal Hasan, a former US Army major and psychiatrist from Virginia, is due to be put to death on 3 December.
John Galligan, a civilian lawyer advising Hasan, said that he was the first person to inform Hasan of the date of his sentence after seeing a social media post about it from the Pentagon’s chief spokesman this week.
Galligan told the BBC that the event is being treated like a “carnival” and is the “closest thing to a lynch mob mentality that we used to see in the olden days”.
Bell County Sheriff’s Office/ReutersHasan, a native of Virginia, admitted to fatally shooting 13 unarmed soldiers in a crowded medical building on Fort Hood, a US military base in Texas, in 2009.
He said during his court-martial in 2013 that he believed he was protecting Muslims and the Taliban in Afghanistan from the US military.
Hasan was shot during the attack and now uses a wheelchair.
The killings on 5 November 2009 were the deadliest ever non-combat attack on an American military base.
In addition to the 13 troops who died, 32 others were injured in the attack.
It remains unclear whether any restrictions would be implemented on a livestream to limit who can watch the execution. Rules about how executions are carried out and who can watch vary by state, and the military also has its own rules.
A number of states require some form of public viewing of executions. Many require journalists to be present. Some states allow the person being executed to invite people, and some allow ordinary citizens to volunteer as witnesses.
Under US Army Regulation 190-55 which governs military executions, only certain categories of people, such as journalists and relatives, are permitted to be present. People aged under 18 are excluded.
Critics of the plan to livestream Hasan’s death say it will be hard, if not impossible, to prevent children from watching it live or in recordings afterwards.
One survivor of the Fort Hood attack told the BBC that he opposed livestreaming the execution due to concerns about the message it might send to young people.
Alonzo Lunsford, a former US Army sergeant who was shot seven times, said it should only be viewable by victims and their families.
“As far as the families of the fallen and the families of the survivors, and the survivors themselves, yes, I think we should be able to look at it uncensored,” he said.
While there were more than 2,700 executions across 17 countries last year, only two nations carried them out publicly.
Eleven public executions were known to have been carried out in Iran in 2025 and another six in Afghanistan, according to Amnesty International.
The UN warned on Friday that livestreaming the execution would “constitute a form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” that is banned under international law.
UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said during Friday’s press briefing in New York that the “possibility of…a government executing someone in public or in front of live cameras, frankly, is abhorrent”.
It’s unclear how or where the US military plans to transmit the stream, and whether it would violate US laws or regulations. Legal challenges are expected in any case.
Truth Social, the social media platform owned by President Trump, does not have a livestream video feature for users.
The White House maintains official accounts and channels on the most widely used online platforms that are capable of streaming live video, namely Meta, YouTube, TikTok and X.
All of the platforms have prohibitions in place on not only violent images and videos, but those that show death or otherwise glorify or make spectacle of violence.
Meta – owner of Instagram, Facebook and Threads – explicitly bans any live stream of capital punishment.
YouTube, owned by Google, bans all “violent or gory content intended to shock or disgust viewers”, but says exceptions may be made for “content that is in the public interest”.
TikTok has a similar blanket ban. Its policy reads, “We don’t allow extremely graphic, violent, or disturbing content—especially when it could cause viewers emotional distress.” That includes the “moment of someone’s death” and “the shooting of an individual”.
Two weeks ago, TikTok updated its policy to include a possible exception to the prohibition for graphic content that is in the “public interest”.
Several US states allow capital punishment to be carried out by firing squad, or by electrocution.
Most executions are done by lethal injection of multiple drugs. Those drugs are now in short supply, however, due to concerns from drugmakers about how they are being used.
The recent attempted execution of convicted killer Christa Pike in Tennessee failed for reasons that are still under investigation. Some have questioned the age of the drugs that were used.
In the wake of Pike’s failed execution, officials are now questioning what other methods may be available to kill condemned prisoners.
The Pentagon announced on 5 October – five days after Pike’s botched injections – that Hasan would die by firing squad. Trump approved of the plan, and said he also approved livestreaming the execution, but a final determination had not been made.
Vice-President JD Vance, meanwhile, cast doubt that it would happen, saying he was not sure, and in any case, did not plan to watch.
The last public execution in the US was the killing of Roscoe “Red” Jackson which took place in front of about 500 people inside a building Missouri, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, which tracks US executions.
The most recent widely watched and notable one took place in Kentucky in 1936. Rainey Bethea, convicted of rape, was hanged in front of an outdoor audience estimated at around 20,000 people.
Hasan’s execution would be the first by the US military since 1961, and the first execution by firing squad since World War Two.
A US Army private was hanged in 1961 after being convicted of raping an 11-year-old Austrian girl.
A young US Army deserter died by firing squad in January 1945 during the final months of WW2.
With additional reporting from Kali Hays
United States2009 Fort Hood shootingUS governmentUS Armed ForcesCapital punishment
