Letter from a Chinese forced-labor camp found in Kmart Hallowe'en decorations

[iam not greek]

Since last Hallowe'en, a woman in Oregon has been circulating a letter she found in a box of decorative tombstones she bought at Kmart. The letter was written by a prisoner in a forced labor camp in China's Masanjia camp; he was imprisoned for practicing Falun Gong, a banned religion whose members have long been targetted for brutal suppression by the Chinese state. CNN located the ex-prisoner and interviewed him as he narrated a story of "inhumane torture" at the camp.

Their staff in Beijing spent months searching for the man. Finally, they found him and confirmed his identity, but didn’t reveal it to the public. He is a follower of Falun Gong, which most of the world calls a Buddhist-Taoist spiritual movement but the Chinese government considers a dangerous cult. He was sentenced to two and a half years in the Masanjia labor camp.

He reports sleep deprivation, beatings, and other misery in the labor camp. Making Halloween decorations for no pay was actually a reprieve for the inmates. Still, he decided to send a total of six letters, somehow procuring two items that inmates weren’t supposed to have: paper (taken from a re-education workbook) and a pen. He wrote the letter in bed, in the dark, avoiding the gaze of the guard who watched everyone while they slept. You know, to make sure they weren’t doing anything subversive like sending letters to the West in the products they were packaging.

Letter from a Chinese forced-labor camp found in Kmart Hallowe'en decorations - Boing Boing

 

[skyknight]

Fa lun gong

 

[neehar]

bonded labour!!!! and that too by the govt..sad

 

[JSCh]

Forced labor camp are actually equivalent of minimum security prison in China. Used for petty crime.

BTW, all prison in China use "forced labor". In Chinese culture, there is no such thing as free lunch. Criminal has to pay back their debt to society by working.

 

[elis]

MOSSAD/CIA backed falungong

 

[iam not greek]

I feel sorry for these bonded labors. China is a 21st century's Nazi

 

[iam not greek]

Chinese Prisoner Who Hid SOS Letter In Kmart Packaging Identified

Oregon mother Julie Keith opened a package of Halloween decorations from Kmart last October expecting a cheap bundle of holiday spookiness, but the letter she found tucked among the Chinese-made items was far more disturbing than the $29 fake bloody tombstone kit she had just purchased.

“Sir: If you occasionally buy this product, please kindly resend this letter to the World Human Right Organization,” the note read. “Thousands people here who are under the persicution of the Chinese Communist Party Government will thank and remember you forever [all sic].”

Written on lined paper in broken English, the letter was a heartbreaking plea for help, sent surreptitiously from the bowels of a forced labor camp in northeastern China. More than a year after Keith discovered the note, a man claiming to be its author has begun speaking out against the brutal Chinese “re-education through labor" system that imprisoned him, reports The New York Times.

Identified only by his surname, Zhang, the 47-year-old former inmate of the Masanjia camp told the Times that he wrote 20 different SOS letter during the two years he was imprisoned. He then hid the letters in packages with English-language writing on them, in the hopes that they would be sold in American stores.

“For a long time I would fantasize about some of the letters being discovered overseas, but over time I just gave up hope and forgot about them,” Zhang, who follows a spiritual discipline that is banned in China, told the Times.

In a separate interview with CNN, Zhang detailed the extreme lengths he went to in order to protect his secret. When the guards weren't watching, Zhang said he tore off pages of exercise books to use as paper and convinced a friend to sneak him a ball pen refill.

"I hid it in a hollow space in the bed stand -- and only got time to write late at night when everyone else had fallen asleep," Zhang told CNN. "The lights were always on in the camp and there was a man on duty in every room to keep an eye on us."

Keith, meanwhile, says she is still waiting for U.S. authorities to properly address the situation. After she took her story public last year, Oregon station KATU reached out to Kmart parent company Sears Holdings and received this written statement:

Although we found no evidence that production was subcontracted to a labor camp during a recent audit of the factory that produced the Halloween decoration, our investigation continues.

Keith told CNN she's not buying that explanation. Sears "must know" that their products are being made in camps like Masanjia, but she thinks the company "would rather this be swept under the rug."

"It is quite ironic that it was a bloody graveyard kit that I purchased -- knowing that the people who made these kits were desperate and bloody themselves," Keith told CNN. "Now I check the labels and try not to buy things I don't necessarily need, especially if it is made in China."

Chinese Prisoner Who Hid SOS Letter In Kmart Packaging Identified

 

[Okemos]

Although I support work in prison system, I also condemn any extra-judicial imprisonment. It's better to ask prisoners work than sit around idly for both mental and physical health, but I also think it is terribly wrong to put people in so called "labor camp" without 3rd party scrutiny, i.e. the court. I can see how this can be easily abused by labor camp officials for their financial gains.

So any conscientious Chinese should speak out against imprisonment in labor camps without trial. It could be you and me someday if somehow one day, some police officials find you irritating and put you in labor camp. However, I personally have any heard of anybody in my life put in labor camp.

 

[sweetgrape]

So, the man's English seems good, the jail give he pen、paper and time, let he can record crime of CCP, and sent the letter outside secretly, like a spy, very professional, is he trained by someone?

Falungung, Innocent? hehe!

 

[JSCh]

China do not usually follow exactly how the west's due process work. For them, to practically deal with the immediate problem is more pressing and important. There is a system in-place but it is not strictly rule based and superficially squeaking clean like the west.

It is a mistake, to ALWAYS assume the WORST when China do not do thing the western way. It is very easy to fire up the western buzz-word to criticize and taking up some cases and extrapolate to the whole system.

Like this line in the article, "In one case, a mother was sentenced to one and a half years in a labor camp for "disrupting social order" after she repeatedly petitioned officials to execute men convicted of raping her 11-year-old daughter."

All there cases are complicated. They weren't clear cut black and white.

Just how do you think the west deal with people that repeatedly resist arrest, orders and rules? Do you really think that it is better?

 

[walle990]

Zhang, who follows a spiritual discipline that is banned in China

hahahahahaha falungong. Did he also tell the reporter his leader is capable of levitation and curing terminal illnesses with his bare hands but refuses to demonstrate it ever?

 

[tranquilium]

I was reading the letter and thinking "hey, the guy's English is pretty good, but why is the few Chinese words so crappy?" Then, I read about the part about Falun Gong and the mystery is solved.

Forced labor camp are actually equivalent of minimum security prison in China. Used for petty crime.

BTW, all prison in China use "forced labor". In Chinese culture, there is no such thing as free lunch. Criminal has to pay back their debt to society by working.

You are way off the mark. This is not about prisons in China at all. This is just Falun Gong and its usual antics in US.

 

[applesauce]

I was reading the letter and thinking "hey, the guy's English is pretty good, but why is the few Chinese words so crappy?" Then, I read about the part about Falun Gong and the mystery is solved.



You are way off the mark. This is not about prisons in China at all. This is just Falun Gong and its usual antics in US.

the minute i read FalunGong, is the minute i decided that letter is full of bull.
want to criticise the jail system in china? go for it,
but i wouldnt thrust these Falungong guys as far as i could throw them

 

[ephone]

Nice handwriting. The problem is: is it real???

Since last Hallowe'en, a woman in Oregon has been circulating a letter she found in a box of decorative tombstones she bought at Kmart. The letter was written by a prisoner in a forced labor camp in China's Masanjia camp; he was imprisoned for practicing Falun Gong, a banned religion whose members have long been targetted for brutal suppression by the Chinese state. CNN located the ex-prisoner and interviewed him as he narrated a story of "inhumane torture" at the camp.



Letter from a Chinese forced-labor camp found in Kmart Hallowe'en decorations - Boing Boing

 

[cyphercide]

Nice handwriting. The problem is: is it real???

Yep. CNN was able to get in touch with the inmate who wrote it.

Chinese labor camp inmate tells of true horror of Halloween 'SOS' - CNN.com