Jewish advocates in New Orleans are speaking out against Gov. Jeff Landry’s plan to execute people using nitrogen gas.
The group Jews Against Gassing gathered on the steps of Touro Synagogue in Uptown New Orleans on Monday, some wearing yarmulkes and prayer shawls, to pray and protest gas executions that could begin taking place in March.
They don’t all oppose the death penalty outright, but rather the method. Rabbi David Cohen-Henriquez said it's a "painful echo" of the Nazi genocide.
“Some methods of execution, like the one we are protesting today, are not just about the method itself, but about the emotional, psychological and cultural scars they bring to communities,” Cohen-Henriquez said.
Millions of Jewish people, people with disabilities and others were killed during the Holocaust, including in gas chambers.
The group is calling on Gov. Jeff Landry to turn away from the method, and for the state to ban its use.
The state announced a new protocol that includes execution by nitrogen hypoxia on Feb. 10. The method forces a person to breathe pure nitrogen gas, eventually causing suffocation and organ failure.
The technique is controversial and has only been used a handful of times to execute people in Alabama — the only U.S. state to have used the method.
A group of experts from the United Nations believe execution by nitrogen hypoxia is “clearly prohibited under international law,” because they argue starving a body of oxygen can amount to cruel and inhuman punishment or even torture.
The governor’s announcement comes after President Donald Trump signed an executive order last month boosting state resources to carry out death sentences. Landry has made it a priority to resume executions in Louisiana, where none have taken place in more than a decade.
“We will carry out these sentences and justice will be dispensed,” said Landry in a press release.
This story was produced by the Gulf States Newsroom, a collaboration between Mississippi Public Broadcasting, WBHM in Alabama, WWNO and WRKF in Louisiana and NPR.
