Internet Footage of Saddam’s Execution Criticized

Within hours of Saddam Hussein’s execution, people were feverishly looking for the video to be released on the Internet. A grainy cell phone video of the execution was shown on Al-Jazeera television late Saturday night and quickly appeared on the Internet.

The unofficial video showed a scene of heightened emotions and an enraged crowd where one person is heard shouting "To hell!" at Hussein. The deposed president is heard exchanging insults with his executioners as he is prepared for hanging. The footage shows Saddam being dropped through the trapdoor of the gallows, where he dangles until he is dead.

On Tuesday, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered an investigation to determine who the person is in the video taunting the former dictator, and to try to uncover who leaked the cell phone footage to the press. Following the execution, Sunnis in Iraq engaged in mostly peaceful demonstrations across the country. Meanwhile, international criticism of the execution itself continued.

Cuba, a Communist country which allows capital punishment, called the execution "an illegal act in a country that has been driven toward an internal conflict in which millions of citizens have been exiled or lost their lives. "The Italian government called for a United Nations moratorium on the death penalty. Italian Premier Romano Prodi said that Italy would ask other European Union countries that oppose capital punishment to support their request for a moratorium to the UN General Assembly. Italy has several times lobbied unsuccessfully for UN action against the death penalty.

The Vatican criticized the footage, with the Holy See’s daily, L’Osservatore Roman, decrying the video as "making a spectacle" of the execution. L’Osservatore said that the execution had turned capital punishment into "an expression of political hubris," adding that the execution "represented, for the ways in which it happened and for the media attention it received, another example of the violation of the most basic rights of man."

British Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott said that the people who leaked the footage should be condemned. "I think the manner was quite deplorable really," Prescott said in an interview with the BBC. "I don’t think one can endorse in any way that, whatever your views about capital punishment. Frankly, to get the kind of recorded messages coming out is totally unacceptable and I think whoever is involved and responsible for it should be ashamed of themselves."

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon of the United Nations has failed to state the UN’s official stance on the issue of capital punishment, saying that it should be a decision left to the governments of individual countries. "Saddam Hussein was responsible for committing heinous crimes and unspeakable atrocities against Iraqi people and we should never forget victims of his crime," Ban told reporters in talking about Saddam's crimes against humanity. "The issue of capital punishment is for each and every member state to decide."

Although Ban’s spokeswoman said there has been no change in policy, Ban’s ambiguous answer left many to wonder exactly what the UN’s stance on the death penalty is.