Columnist Urges Public Not to Watch Nidal Hasan's Execution
Peter Hitchens argues that public executions, even livestreamed, are a 'depraved event' that stirs harmful emotions.
Columnist Peter Hitchens has urged the public not to watch the planned execution of Nidal Hasan, a former U.S. Army major convicted of a mass shooting, by firing squad in Texas. Hitchens, who has witnessed two executions, contends that public participation in such events, whether in person or via livestream, is a harmful and depraved spectacle.
Hasan killed 13 people and wounded 32 others in the 2009 Fort Hood shooting and has admitted to the crime. While Hitchens states he is not concerned about the principle of executing Hasan due to the severity of his actions, he expressed strong reservations about the public nature of the event.
Hitchens described his experiences witnessing an execution by lethal injection in Texas in 1994 and another by electric chair in Georgia in 1995. He found the lethal injection process, conducted in a sterile, medical-like setting, to be "loathsome" and a misrepresentation of death. The electric chair execution, he noted, was "brutally, ferociously dead" after a single, devastating blow.
He drew parallels to historical instances of public executions, such as the 1936 hanging of Rainey Bethea in Kentucky, which occurred before a crowd of 20,000 and was accompanied by festive behavior. Hitchens also cited Charles Dickens's account of a public double hanging in London in 1849, where Dickens described the "wickedness and levity" of the crowd, noting "brutal jokes" and "tumultuous demonstrations of indecent delight."
"Public execution is a disturbing and depraved event, a nasty form of pagan human sacrifice, releasing emotions that ought not to be released," Hitchens wrote. He argued that millions watching on screens at home would be no different from the crowds at historical public executions, suggesting such appetites, once stirred, would grow and represent a "downward step."
Hitchens expressed concern that President Trump and the Secretary for War may not fully grasp the implications of stirring such emotions by proceeding with the livestreamed execution. He concluded by urging the public not to watch the event and to refrain from bringing such a spectacle into their homes.