Australia will do whatever it can to stop the “completely abhorrent” livestreaming of a US prisoner’s execution from being available to view in the country, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Tuesday.
Nidal Hasan’s execution is scheduled for 3 December at Fort Hood, Texas, where he shot dead 13 people in 2009. The execution will be the first by a US military firing squad since 1945.
A Pentagon official told AFP last week the execution would be streamed live, after US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said “we’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public.”
Albanese told national broadcaster ABC he had a “social responsibility” to stop it being shown.
“I do not know why anybody would want themselves to watch such an event, let alone sit back and allow potentially kids and families to get access to this,” Albanese said.
Australia’s internet regulator has said it does not have the power to prevent the execution from being shown online.
Albanese said it was “not as simple as turning off a light switch”.
But he said his government would make clear to social media companies that “this has no place in our country”.
“If there is anything we can do, we will do, I assure you of that.”
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Albanese’s Environment Minister Murray Watt also said he found the plans “absolutely disgusting”.
Plans for Hasan’s execution to be shown online have drawn widespread revulsion both in the United States and internationally.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said “the livestreaming of an execution is tantamount to a public execution and would breach the absolute prohibition of torture”.
In Australia, the issue has prompted rare consensus across the political spectrum in opposition.
Far-right lawmaker Barnaby Joyce described it as “Roman amphitheatre stuff”, while Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young called for regulators to stop the execution being shown in Australia.
ALSO READ: UN says livestreamed execution of US army killer amounts to torture
