Pressure mounted on Friday on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to abandon plans to broadcast live the execution of the American soldiers' killer, as Vice President JD Vance distanced himself from the announcement, questioning its feasibility.

Nidal Hasan, 56, is to be executed by firing squad on December 3 at Fort Hood, Texas (south), where he killed 13 people, including 12 military personnel, and wounded more than 30 others on November 5, 2009, in an attack inspired by the jihadist organization Al-Qaeda.

"I see these announcements. I don't know if it's going to happen," said JD Vance, when questioned by an AFP journalist. "If it's broadcast live, I won't watch," he added.

In a very rare move, Republican elected officials, the party of President Donald Trump, have publicly expressed, in very strong terms, their opposition to the live broadcast announced by Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News presenter fond of martial staging.

"I fully support the death penalty, but broadcasting live executions is what jihadists do. America is better than that," said Austin Scott, a member of the House of Representatives and a member of a military affairs committee.

Democratic Senator Mark Kelly, a former astronaut and Navy officer, also stressed that "Nidal Hasan is a murderer" who will have to answer for his actions.

"But a public execution? Here in the United States? That's the kind of thing Iran and the Taliban do. Is that who we want to be associated with?" he wondered on X, echoing other reactions, including international ones.

Such a live broadcast would constitute a form of "torture," warned the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, reiterating its position on "public executions in Afghanistan and Iran."

- "Cruelty" -

Donald Trump, a staunch supporter of the death penalty, on Friday stood by his decision to approve the firing squad for Nidal Hasan, who, according to him, "deserves it." But he did not comment on the public nature of the execution.

This execution will be the first carried out by the US military since 1961, and the first by firing squad since 1945.

A live broadcast "would only exacerbate the cruelty of the death penalty and perpetuate the cycle of violence that the authorities say they want to end," said Justin Mazzola, an official with the US section of Amnesty International.

"This announcement adds to the display of cruelty we have just witnessed in the senseless attempt to execute Christa Pike in Tennessee" (south), he added.

He was referring to last week's unprecedented botched execution of a woman who survived two lethal injections, reigniting the debate over the application of the death penalty in the United States.

The president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Archbishop Paul Coakley, called the decision to publicly execute Nidal Hasan "a barbaric promotion of a culture of death."

According to Amnesty International, at least 17 public executions took place in 2025 worldwide: 11 in Iran and six in Afghanistan.

Nidal Hasan, a military psychiatrist and Muslim American of Palestinian origin, who was shot in the spine during the 2009 shooting, has since been disabled and uses a wheelchair.

"He will be shot by soldiers, as is proper, and we will ensure that the public can witness it, that it is a public event," Minister Hegseth said in a filmed interview on Wednesday, without specifying which broadcast channel was being considered.

YouTube, Meta and X did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment on whether they would allow this broadcast on their platforms.

TikTok referred to its policy prohibiting shocking or violent images, including those showing "an individual being shot".

The vast majority of executions in the country are carried out by the states, with federal executions being rare and those under military jurisdiction now exceptional.

The specialized Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) has recorded 135 executions of soldiers by the US Army since 1916.