Abeheading video is a video which depicts a live murder bybeheading or the aftermath (e.g., display of the severed head). Such videos are typically distributed mostly through the Internet,[1] and are often employed by groups seeking to instill shock or terror into a population. Although beheading has been a widely employed public execution method since the ancientGreeks andRomans,[2] videos of this type only began to arise in 2002 with the beheading ofDaniel Pearl and the growth of the Internet in theInformation Age, which allowed groups to anonymously publish these videos for public consumption. The beheadings shown in these videos are usuallynot performed in a "classical" method — decapitating a victim quickly with a blow from asword oraxe — but by the relatively slow and torturous process of slicing and sawing the victim's neck, while still alive, with aknife.[3]
The first beheading by the National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty was ofDaniel Pearl in 2002.[4] The videos were popularized in 2004 byAbu Musab al-Zarqawi, a radical Islamic militant.[5]
The videos caused controversy among Islamic scholars, some of whom denounced them as against Islamic law;al-Qaeda did not approve andOsama bin Laden considered them poor public relations. Regardless, they became popular with certain Islamic terrorist groups, such as theIslamic State.[6]
Early videos were grainy and unsophisticated, but, according to theChicago Sun-Times, had by 2004 been "growing in sophistication, using animated graphics and editing techniques apparently aimed at embellishing the audio to make a victim's final moments seem more disturbing".[7] These videos are often uploaded to the Internet by terrorists, then discussed and distributed by web-based outlets,[8] such asblogs,shock sites, and traditional journalistic media. In 2013, a beheading video by aMexican drug cartel spreadvirally onFacebook. The non-profit organizationFamily Online Safety Institute petitioned Facebook to remove the video.[9] Initially, Facebook refused.[10] They later complied,[11] and subsequently clarified their policies, stating that beheading videos would only be allowed if posted in a manner intended for its users to "condemn" the acts.[12]
Nikolay Melnik, Kazakhstani citizen, beheaded July 18, 2008, inPodyachevo[which?], Russia by his fellow neo-Nazi Konstantin Nikiforenko of theNSO-North.[32][33]
A video (article published July 2015) shows a boy executing aSyrian Arab Army soldier using a knife inPalmyra.[52]
FourKurdishPeshmerga members, beheaded in Iraq in October 2015 by IS jihadists.[53]
A video showing the beheading of a Russian spy agent by an IS fighter, who is threatening Russia and PresidentVladimir Putin with attacks, was released in December 2015.[54][55]
Jürgen Kantner, German citizen, beheaded in February 2017 in the Philippines by Abu Sayyaf jihadists.[58]
IS has released a video claiming to show one of its jihadists beheading a Russian officer.[59]
Muhammad "Hamadi" Abdullah al-Ismail, Syrian citizen who allegedly deserted the Syrian Arab Army, tortured with a sledgehammer and beheaded near the al-Shaer oil fields,Homs Governorate, Syria (the first footage appeared online in June 2017) by Russian mercenaries linked to theWagner Group.[60]
Ayafor Florence, Cameroonian citizen who worked as a wardress at the Bamenda Central Prison, beheaded on September 29, 2019 in Pinyin,Northwest Region, Cameroon byAmbazonian militants.[62]
ATikTok video showing a person being beheaded was uploaded by the user @mayengg03 and went viral. The clip starts with a young girl dancing in front of a camera, before switching to a different video with unrelated people where the beheading occurs. TikTok removed the video.[63]
An Egyptian man beheaded a victim and wandered in the street while holding up the severed head in broad daylight.[64]
Kanhaiya Lal, a Hindu tailor, was murdered during an attempted beheading following the2022 Muhammad remarks controversy in India. The two Muslim perpetrators recorded themselves committing the crime but fled from the scene after slicing the victim's throat.[65]
An unemployedPennsylvania resident and self-proclaimedmilitia leader uploaded a 14-minuteYouTube video that displayed the severed head of his father, whom he said "is now in hell for eternity as a traitor to this country". Police subsequently confirmed that the father had died and his head had been removed, and charged him with first-degree murder and abuse of a corpse.[67][68][69] The video was removed from YouTube about five hours after it was published and the YouTube channel was terminated.[70]
A hoax beheading video filmed by Benjamin Vanderford, Robert Martin, and Laurie Kirchner in 2004 received wide attention from the American press.[71] The video usedJama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad's logo, but not the group's flag. It was originally filmed for Vanderford's local election campaign.[72] He was seekingMatt Gonzalez's seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.[73] Vanderford's second intention was to point out how uncritically the mainstream media would accept an anonymous video.[74] TheIslamic Global Media Center claimed to have made the video, but removed it from their website after the hoax was discovered.[75] The video also appeared on other militant websites and was broadcast on Arabic television.[76][77]
^Miles, Steven H. (2009),Oath Betrayed: American's Torture Doctures (2nd ed.), University of California Press, p. 162,ISBN978-0-520-25968-3 Miles' claim matches the list in this article if we ignore the beheading of Daniel Pearl almost 27 months earlier in Pakistan. From at last some perspectives, it seems reasonable to classify the Pearl beheading as separate from the 10 beheadings in the 6 months following Abu Ghraib abuses entered the international consciousness. The match isn't perfect, because to get eleven beheadings after Abu Ghraib and before Miles' book appeared, we would either need an event not included in this article or we would need to include the beheading of Piotr Stańczak in Pakistan just over 4 years later. Nevertheless, the record seems largely to confirm Miles' suggestion of vengeance as a motive. He continues, "Pursuing justice differs from being consumed by revenge. The former proceeds from crime to investigation, to trial, to punishment, and then to closure. Vengeance is a whirlwind, where atrocity justifies revenge, and revenge becomes an atrocity."
