PIEDMONT, S.C. — Today, local faith leaders led by Reverend Hillary Taylor delivered nearly 5,000 petition signatures to Allegro Industries, a safety equipment manufacturer based in South Carolina, demanding the corporation ban the use of its gas masks in death penalty executions. The petition, which also names Allegro’s corporate parents, Connecticut-based Walter Surface Technologies and Canadian-based Onex Corporation, come after an Allegro mask was used to carry out the first ever nitrogen suffocation to execute Kenneth Eugene Smith in Alabama on January 25. In response to today’s peaceful action, which comes as Alabama readies for its second execution by nitrogen suffocation on September 26, Allegro executives caustically locked the doors and called the police.
“Allegro’s silence as its masks are used to bring back the gas chamber is defeaning and will undoubtedly lead to more torture and death in Alabama and beyond, with other states adopting this execution method,” said Morgan Duckett, Corporate Campaigns Associate at Worth Rises. “We proudly stand with faith leaders in South Carolina in their demand that Allegro Industries stops profiting off executions and bars its products from further use in killing. We urge Allegro to demonstrate their commitment to safety by exiting this murderous business and the many corporations that did before them.”
Advocates discovered that the gas mask Alabama planned to use in its first nitrogen suffocation was manufactured by Allegro ahead of the execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith and immediately demanded the corporation take action. The United Nations has also condemned nitrogen suffocation as a violation of international human rights outlined in treaties ratified by the United States. And the European Union has denounced the practice. Despite advocates’ pleas and international media attention, Allegro Industries has remained silent.
“It is hypocritical that South Carolina, a state that boasts so much about being ‘pro-life,’ is allowing businesses like Allegro to participate in state sanctioned murder. And not just any kind of murder: murder based on the Nazi gas chambers of Auschwitz, Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka. Would it not be better to focus our state's businesses on life-giving endeavors instead of death-dealing methods?," said Reverend F. Hillary Taylor, Executive Director of South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.
The petition is the latest in a growing movement calling out the private sector’s involvement in the death penalty. A recent campaign led by Worth Rises forced Airgas, a subsidiary of French-based Air Liquide, to ban Alabama from using its nitrogen in death penalty executions. Last year, Worth Rises also forced workplace safety firm FDR Safety to withdraw from its contract to help develop the nitrogen suffocation protocol.
Before these recent wins, decades of advocacy moved pharmaceutical corporations to ban corrections agencies from using their drugs to carry out the death penalty. As a result some states ended the death penalty or suspended executions. But others, like Alabama, have pursued horrifying new methods, such as nitrogen suffocation. Oklahoma and Mississippi now also allow execution by nitrogen gas. Allegro’s own home state of South Carolina paused executions in 2013 and has yet to resume them despite concerted efforts to.
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Worth Rises is a non-profit advocacy organization dedicated to dismantling the prison industry and ending the exploitation of those it targets. Follow @WorthRises on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.