Social media platforms and media outlets have been warned not to broadcast a planned livestreamed execution in the United States, but doubts remain about the Albanese Government’s ability to block the footage from being viewed in Australia. Source: Sydney Morning Herald.
The Pentagon announced last week that the execution of Nidal Malik Hasan, convicted of killing 13 people at a military base at Fort Hood in Texas in 2009, would be livestreamed on December 3.
The execution is expected to be carried out by firing squad, which would make it the first killing of its kind in the US since World War II.
Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young wrote to Communications Minister Anika Wells and eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant on Monday calling for them to do whatever it takes to stop footage of the “abhorrent” firing squad from being available in Australia.
Plans for the livestream drew condemnation across the political spectrum, with One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce decrying it as “Roman amphitheatre stuff”.
“I certainly don’t want any children, or anybody, to be honest, to witness another human being … shot by a firing squad,” Senator Joyce told News24.
A group of eminent Australians has called for the government to do more to live up to its reputation as a leading opponent of the death penalty, warning there could be a repeat of the execution of the Bali Nine ringleaders without reform.
A government spokesperson said: “Vision of an execution being livestreamed here would be deeply distressing to many Australians. No one should be confronted with it, particularly younger Australians.”
White House officials have said Mr Trump is not locked into broadcasting the execution, raising the possibility the plan will be scrapped.
Opposition treasury spokesperson Tim Wilson said he found the prospect of a livestreamed execution “enormously problematic”, but said he had concerns over censorship.
Labor frontbencher Julian Hill said he found the “whole thing abhorrent”.
“But the honest answer is, I don’t know what legal powers exist to block. I don’t know how effective such things would be,” he said.
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‘Roman amphitheatre stuff’: Big tech, media warned over livestreamed US execution (By Matthew Knott and Rob Harris, Sydney Morning Herald)
