I can predict an argument from people that, "Hey the USA, Europe, and Japan use prison labor for license plates, eye glasses, and so forth, so isn't that just as unjust?"
Prison labor in the majority of cases in nations outside China represents a chance to get outside the walls, is voluntary and contributes to a reduced sentence. Not quite the same as China. China uses the labor of prisoners as a mandatory part of "re-education".
The prisoners in the US, Europe, and Japan also have a nice place to live (compared to China) heat and air-conditioning, three healthy meals a day, medical care, and visitation from legal professionals and family. They have TV's , rec room, exercise equipment, and even internet use. All that when added up is a small price to pay and a whole lot to receive. Prisons in China are used to manufacture products from prisons where there is no basic medical care, meals are with held for the smallest violation of arbitrary and ever changing rules, and prisoners are systematically tortured.
There is no comparing Chinese prisons with those in the US, Europe, or Japan. - Rev. Daniel Rea, Editor
From the AP
A New York woman said she was left shaking after finding a letter inside a Saks Fifth Avenue shopping bag purportedly written by a man in a Chinese prison factory that was mass-producing the distinctive carry-all.
Stephanie Wilson, 28, an Australian who lives in Harlem, said she found the message while reaching into the bad for a receipt and it said 'HELP HELP HELP'.
The desperate cry was written in blue ink on white-lined paper and included a passport-sized photo of a man - who called himself Tohnain Emmanuel Njong - in an orange jacket, as well as a Yahoo email address.
The note said: 'We are ill-treated and work like slaves for 13 hours every day producing these bags in bulk in the prison factory. Thanks and sorry to bother you.'
Wilson said she found it in September 2012 after buying a pair of Hunter rain boots and passed it on to the Laogai Research Foundation - a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group founded to fight human rights abuses in Chinese prisons - who began investigating.
But Njong's Yahoo email address bounced back, so the nonprofit was unable to locate him.
Harry Wu, the founder of Laogai Research Foundation, spent 19 years in a Chinese prison factory, known as laogai., and that Njong took a huge risk both writing and sending it.
'There would be solitary confinement until you confess and maybe later they increase your sentence - or even death,' Wu said.
His organization referred the letter to the Department of Homeland Security, which investigates allegations of American companies using forced labor to make their products.
Homeland Security officials confirmed to DNAinfo that they were made aware of the letter, but could not say if they investigated it or are currently looking at Saks in connection to it.
A representative for Saks Fifth Avenue confirmed that the store was notified of the letter by the Laogai Research Foundation in December 2013 and said the company took the allegation seriously and launched an investigation.
Saks also confirmed to DNAinfo that the store's shopping bags are made in China, but didn't have any further information.
Two U.S. laws make it illegal for imported products to be made using slave, convict or indentured labor.
DNAinfo managed to track down a man who claimed to be Njong, admitted to writing the letter and knew specific details about what was in it.
He said he wrote the letter during his three-year prison sentence in the eastern city of Qingdao, Shandong Province.
Njong said he a wrote a total of five letters while in the prison, some in French that he hid in bags emblazoned with French words, and others in English.
Njong, who is now 34, said he had been teaching English in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen when he was arrested in May 2011 and charged with fraud, a crime he said he never committed.
He said he was held in a detention center for 10 months while awaiting a government-sponsored lawyer and was barred from contact with the outside community.
Njong said each prisoner was required to meet a daily production quota of what they working on - bet it shopping bags, electronics or sewing garments - and that they were given a pen and paper to record their productivity.
This is what he used to pen the letters, hiding under his covers at night so no one would see.
Njong's family did not know where he was for the whole time he was prison, because he was not permitted to contact anyone following his arrest.
He said he was discharged from prison in December 2013 after receiving a sentence cut for good behavior and finally reunited with relatives, who presumed him dead.
After struggling to find work in his home country, Njong recently moved to Dubai and secured a job that will allow him to stay there.
He said that though his imprisonment ran its course without intervention, he was happy that his letter made its way into at least one person's hands.
'It was the biggest surprise of my life,' Njong told DNAinfo. 'I am just happy that someone heard my cry.'
AP source story with picture of the letter here at DNAinfo New York
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