Chilling Letter From Chinese Factory Worker Found In Kmart Halloween Decorations

[trailmonkee]

http://in.finance.yahoo.com/news/chinese-factory-worker-wrote-chilling-201800033.html



The New York Times has identified the man who wrote a chilling letter describing Chinese factory conditions that was found in a box of Halloween decorations from Kmart.

The man, identified only as Mr. Zhang to protect his identity, told the Times that he was imprisoned in a labor camp where " inmates toiled seven days a week, their 15-hour days haunted by sadistic guards."

The labor camps are full of petty criminals or people who rebel against the country's religion, Mr. Zhang said. He said he wrote 20 letters over the course of two years.

One was discovered by Julie Keith of Oregon, who had bought the decorations over a year ago but decided to use them to decorate for her daughter's birthday party last October.

Inside the box, she found a plea for help supposedly written by a Chinese factory worker in Masanjia Labor Camp in Shenyang, The Oregonian reported at the time.

Here's an excerpt from the letter, grammatical mistakes included:

"If you occasionally buy this product, please kindly resend this letter to the World Human Right Organization. Thousands people here who are under the persecution of the Chinese Communist Party Government will thank and remember you forever.

People who work here have to work 15 hours a day without Saturday, Sunday break and any holidays. Otherwise, they will suffer torturement, beat and rude remark. Nearly no payment (10 yuan/1 month).

People who work here, suffer punishment 1-3 years averagely, but without Court Sentence (unlaw punishment). Many of them are Falun Gong practitioners, who are totally innocent people only because they have different believe to CCPG. They often suffer more punishment than others."

Ten yuan is equivalent to $1.61.

the NY Times article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/12/world/asia/man-details-risks-in-exposing-chinas-forced-labor.html?_r=0

[Xipe Totec]

1. What's heartbreaking is that they still look to us as a beacon of liberty

As we allow our own freedom and liberty crumble.

[antigone382]

4. Yes, our declining right to privacy is troubling, but I don't think that is the chief tragedy here.

We are the secondary beneficiaries of a supply chain that enslaves and poisons billions of people the world over. While no erosion of liberties is acceptable, to turn this into a chance to reflect on our own domestic plight rather than acknowledging the role we play in the plights of the most wretchedly oppressed in the world is a disservice to the people who we are active in oppressing, and to whose cheap labor we in essence feel entitled.

After all, we just must have that smart phone containing the coltan which funds bloody conflict and horrific rape in the Congo; we just must have that chocolate which in all likelihood relies on child slavery in the Cote d'Ivoire; we really can't do without those Halloween decorations made by the enslaved practicioners of a banned religion in China; and lest we forget, how could we live without bananas picked by exploited workers in Central America?

We NEED to focus on our excesses and the implications they have on workers the world over. There is a place for discussion of NSA infringements on our rights, and perhaps that can even be a part of the conversation here. But it is not even close to the most heart breaking aspect of this story, and I think that perspective needs to be asserted.

[Xipe Totec]

7. I completely agree with you

It is not my intention to deflect attention from their plight; I am just heartbroken to see the erosion of what we once were and what we meant to the world.

[antigone382]

8. I understand and I apologize if I came off as overly harsh.

I was just very struck by this story and what it makes clear about our role in the world as consumers...and I wonder if very many of us will really stop and deeply consider the moral implications.

[Xipe Totec]

13. If only more people had your sensitivity

This world would be a far better place.

Peace.

[Junkdrawer]

2. Reminds me of the Banksy Simpson's Opening...

[SomethingFishy]

3. I read about this when she first found the letter..

A lot of people thought it was a hoax...

[antigone382]

5. A small (but GRAPHIC) sampling of the descriptions of horrific abuse which occurred there:

“Sometimes the guards would drag me around by my hair or apply electric batons to my skin for so long, the smell of burning flesh would fill the room,” said Chen Shenchun, 55, who was given a two-year sentence for refusing to give up a petition campaign aimed at recovering unpaid wages from her accounting job at a state-owned factory.

(snip)

All agreed that the worst abuse was directed at Falun Gong members who refused to renounce their faith. In addition to the electric shocks, they said, guards would tie their limbs to four beds, and gradually kick the beds farther apart. Some inmates would be left that way for days, unfed and lying in their own excrement.

(snip)

Sears Holdings, the owner of Kmart, declined to make an executive available for an interview. But in a brief statement, a company spokesman, Howard Riefs, said an internal investigation prompted by the discovery of the letter uncovered no violations of company rules that bar the use of forced labor. He declined to provide the name of the Chinese factory that produced the item, a $29.99 set of Halloween decorations called “Totally Ghoul” that include plastic spiders, synthetic cobwebs and a “bloody cloth.”

Although he was released from Masanjia in 2010, Mr. Zhang, the man who said he wrote the letter, has vivid memories of producing the plastic foam headstones, which were made to look old by painting them with a sponge. “It was an especially difficult task,” he said. “If the results were not to the liking of the guards, they would make us do them again.” He estimated that inmates produced at least 1,000 headstones during the year he worked on them.

(end of quote)

Beyond tragic...

[madrchsod]

6. we have a thriving prison industry here in the usa

in most of the us prisons the conditions are far better than china`s but the pay is the same.

[alphafemale]

9. Wasn't Falun Gong the group that released poison gas in the subway?

[trailmonkee]

10. nope... not even close

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarin_gas_attack_on_the_Tokyo_subway

[alphafemale]

11. ok. thanks. nt

[rustydog]

12. It's possible, I guess. But what are the odds

a factory worker in China, born and raised in china wrote this note in English and placed it in goods bound for America?

This smells like the fake tip/notes that have been posted online.....
Just sayin'