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Wednesday, March 18, 2009

A brief example of how China treats their labor organizers, from Human Rights In China:
On Monday, March 16, 2009, Yao Fuxin (姚福信), a long-time labor activist, was released from Lingyuan No. 2 Prison, Liaoning Province, after completing his seven-year term on conviction of “subversion of state power.” In March 2002, Yao was detained after speaking at a two-day peaceful demonstration involving at least 5,000 workers from six factories in Liaoyang, Liaoning Province, to demand back wages and pension payments. Yao’s initial charge of “gathering a crowd to disrupt social order” was later changed to the more serious charge of subversion, a charge based on his alleged involvement in the banned China Democracy Party. During trial, the court accepted the prosecution’s charge that Yao organized labor activities even after his detention.
Note his treatment in prison:
During his detention and imprisonment, Yao suffered two heart attacks and a stroke. In the Liaoyang Detention Center, he and 19 other inmates were made to sleep on one bed. There, a guard named Lang arranged for two death-row prisoners to watch Yao. Every time Yao closed his eyes to sleep, the two prisoners would step on him. Yao went hungry often as there was not enough to eat. Vegetables were not washed before cooking, so he ate vegetables caked with mud.

HRIC also learned that in late 2002 and early 2003, as the weather got cold, Yao did not have enough clothing or warm bedding. He was placed near an open window, and often he would wake up covered with snow. When he requested permission to ask his family to bring him money so that he could buy bedding for the winter months, prison officials told him they could not get through to his family by phone.

According to sources close to Yao, Yao expressed that he felt it was his duty to fight for the interests of the people and the country, and that what he suffered was a price he was willing to pay.
Read the whole thing, and remember it next time you are buying goods made in China. Also worth considering is why Hillary Clinton has indicated she will de-emphasize human rights in contacts with China.

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