NPR reported Oct. 15 that President Trump announced the scheduled execution of Nidal Hasan — the man convicted of killing 13 people and injuring 32 at Fort Hood in 2009 — will no longer be livestreamed.
The reversal
According to NPR, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had previously said the Pentagon would make the firing‑squad execution public, a plan that NPR said drew condemnations “from the Vatican to fellow Republicans.” In an archived recording aired by NPR, Hegseth said of Hasan, “It was a radical Islamist attack in uniform inside the ranks, and so he’s going to get a firing squad of soldiers, as it should be. And we’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public, because people need to understand that… there’s serious consequences for these types of things.”
Why pull back
NPR host Scott Detrow said the outlet is reporting that one reason for canceling the livestream was Pentagon concern the footage could end up on jihadist websites and endanger U.S. forces in the Middle East. Asked if that risk made sense, New Yorker staff writer Dexter Filkins replied, “Oh, yeah… Absolutely. It’d be everywhere.”
A reporter who watched a public killing
Filkins, who wrote this week about witnessing a 1998 public execution in Kabul under the Taliban, told NPR the U.S. “look[s] a little silly, having advertised the thing and now pulled it back,” and doubted many would be disappointed not to watch. He recalled that the Taliban required attendance at the execution he saw and that the crowd reaction was muted, not celebratory. Filkins said a cleric read from the Quran — including the line “in revenge there is life” — to justify the act. He contrasted that with what he described as “bloodlust” detectable in Hegseth’s tone, characterizing the Taliban’s mood at the time as subdued and focused on ending anarchy.
Where it stands
NPR reports the execution itself remains scheduled; only the plan to livestream it has been canceled.
