Shayang City Prison in Uses Slave Labour to Assemble Christmas Lights for Export to the U.S.

Fanjiatai Prison in Shayang City, Hubei Province, forces the prisoners to work long hours under slave labour conditions, assembling products for export. This prison has many contracts with companies in the provinces of Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Fujian. It has been learned that many products manufactured in Fanjiatai Prison are regularly destined for export to western countries.

An example of these kinds of export products are strings of coloured Christmas lights. There are several styles and colours of the Christmas light products, normally used for decorating a Christmas tree, a window or the exterior of a house. Each string of lights may be installed with 150, 200 or 300 tiny, colored bulbs. A string of fifty 2.5-volt bulbs, for example, is designed to require a 110-volt electrical outlet, which is the same voltage used in the U.S.

Some of the products assembled at Fanjiatai Prison are also transported to Zhejiang Province, where they are assembled for bulk shipment to Taiwan, because these products are to be exported to the U.S. by Taiwanese businesses only. The Christmas lights assembled at Fanjiatai Prison are among the most popular type purchased in the U.S. Falun Dafa practitioners formerly held in this prison have some samples of these tiny lights in their possession, as proof of their allegations. [Note: it is against U.S. law to import any product, of which any part was manufactured or assembled using penal or forced labour.]

Postal code of Fanjiatai Prison, Shayang City, Hubei Province: 448200.
Phone number of Fanjiatai Prison's "Re-Education" Department: 0724-8575505.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2004/4/18/72604.html