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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World

If livestreaming an execution is an outrage, is looking at old photos of them OK?

A demonstrator behind prison bars holds a sign reading
A demonstrator holds a sign protesting against the death penalty. Photograph: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

In view of the worldwide revulsion at Pete Hegseth’s decision to livestream a judicial killing (‘Medieval’ and ‘disturbing’: US plan to livestream execution elicits global condemnation, 9 October), how come there were photos of two more – a man awaiting execution in an electric chair in 1928 and conspirators in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln on the gallows in 1865 – on page 8 of last Saturday’s paper (next to your article on whether Christa Pike’s botched execution might help to end the death penalty in the US). I’m glad they weren’t filmed.
Nick Hopkinson
Tockwith, North Yorkshire

• I was very disappointed to see a write-up about the famed Pen-y-Gwryd Hotel, framed around the first ascent of Everest, make no mention of Sir Charles Evans, who lived just miles away in Capel Curig and whose tankard hangs behind the bar (The Welsh mountain inn that helped conquer Everest, 15 October). He was a hero of British mountaineering who is too often absent from commentary, and the reason the hotel was part of the story in the first place.
William Purkhardt
Godalming, Surrey

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