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The statement came after US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth vowed to publicly execute Nidal Malik Hasan, who was sentenced to death by a military jury after being convicted of killing 13 people and injuring 32 in a 2009 shooting at the Fort Hood military base in Texas.\u00a0<\/p>\n
OHCHR\u2019s Shabia Mantoo was responding to a question from journalists at a press briefing in Geneva.<\/p>\n
She noted that the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker T\u00fcrk, in response to public executions in Afghanistan and Iran had previously stressed that such executions \u201cconstitute a form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cFailure to respect this prohibition would inevitably render the execution arbitrary in nature, and result in a violation of the right to life and the absolute prohibition of torture<\/strong>,\u201d the spokesperson added.<\/p>\n UN Spokesperson St\u00e9phane Dujarric said during Friday\u2019s press briefing in New York that the \u201cpossibility of\u2026a government executing someone in public or in front of live cameras, frankly, is abhorrent\u201d<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Earlier this month, OHCHR also\u00a0called on the authorities in the US state of Tennessee not to pursue any further attempts to execute Christa Pike, saying her case highlights why the death penalty should be abolished.<\/p>\n \u201cThe death penalty has no place in any society, and Christa Pike\u2019s case lays bare the multiple reasons why capital punishment should be abolished<\/strong>,\u201d said UN Human Rights Office spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani.<\/p>\n \u201cHer prolonged suffering is abhorrent, and cruel. Key fair trial concerns remain unresolved<\/strong>,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Ms. Pike survived a botched execution attempt and regained consciousness on 6 October.\u00a0<\/p>\n Responding to the botched execution, Tennessee Department of Correction Commissioner Frank Strada has said he will be stepping down at the end of this month.\u00a0<\/p>\n In a\u00a0report to the Human Rights Council on the question of the death penalty, published in August 2025, UN Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres welcomed steady progress towards abolition worldwide, but expressed concern that a diminishing number of countries were substantially increasing the number of executions.<\/p>\nCall to halt Tennessee execution<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Executions on the rise<\/strong><\/h2>\n