In fact, Arkansas does allow for the witnessing of an execution....just not ALL of it.

Here is the actual story:

Arkansas journalists file lawsuit to make entire executions open to witnesses

The Associated Press
Wednesday, July 25, 2007

LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas: Several journalists sued the Arkansas prisons chief, demanding he let witnesses see the entire execution process and not just when poison flows into condemned inmates.
Arkansas does not allow media and public witnesses to watch as intravenous tubes are inserted and removed from the inmates. The curtains to the execution chamber open to witnesses after the condemned prisoner is already strapped to the gurney, and close once the inmate is dead.
"Witnesses should be allowed to see the entire process, including strapping the condemned down and the insertion of needles," reads the lawsuit, filed Wednesday in federal court. "The public has a First Amendment right to view executions from the moment the condemned is escorted into the execution chamber."
The procedures vary among U.S. states that have capital punishment. But several, including Virginia and South Carolina, keep the curtains closed while the tubes are inserted.
The lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas on behalf of the Northwest Arkansas Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, the Arkansas Times Inc., and the editor of the Arkansas Times. It was filed against Larry Norris, director of the Arkansas Department of Corrections.