LDF Forcefully Denounces U.S. Secretary of Defense Decision to Livestream Execution by Firing Squad

Read a PDF of our statement here.

United States Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced that the military will livestream the firing squad execution of Nidal Hasan, a wheelchair-bound man-the first military execution by firing squad since World War II.

If the military carries out its plan, this will be the first livestreamed execution in United States history.

In response, the Legal Defense Fund (LDF) issued the following statement:

"The era of lynchings where white people jeered and made an event out of the torture of a Black person is echoed today by the grim announcement of a televised shooting sponsored by the government. This is an unprecedented, barbaric decision that makes the killing of a man a point of sordid spectacle. Secretary Hegseth has chosen to undermine the sanctity of human life in a vile attempt to politically exploit what is poised to be a harrowing execution.

"The dehumanization of people of color, and people from the Middle East in particular, is once again on full display through this decision. The government's opportunistic use of a man's brutal killing turns an already grotesque injustice into a national spectacle that degrades our country and degrades us all."

Despite the barbarism of this decision, the U.S. death penalty is waning and has declined to a 40-year-old low. Read more here.

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Founded in 1940, the Legal Defense Fund (LDF) is the nation's first civil rights legal organization. LDF has been completely separate from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) since 1957, though it was founded under the leadership of Thurgood Marshall while he was at the NAACP. LDF's Thurgood Marshall Institute (TMI) is a division of LDF that undertakes innovative research and houses LDF's archive. In all media attributions, please refer to us as the Legal Defense Fund or LDF (do not include NAACP) and refer to the Institute as LDF's Thurgood Marshall Institute or TMI.