In the maze of the Christmas commerce and holiday glitter, my thoughts go out to those who are in the labour re-education camps in China. There are at least a hundred thousand Falun Gong practitioners imprisoned there. As my wife and I mingled in the crowd of Christmas shoppers, I wondered how many of the goods in those shops are made partly or wholly by Falun Gong practitioners, democracy activists, clandestine Christians and others.

According to the World Organisation to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG) and Laogai Research Foundation, China has a forced labour camp system established under the Mao era that remains highly operative today. The re-education-through-labour system has become an extremely effective tool over the past fifty years, used by the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) totalitarian regime to violate its own constitutions and place itself above all laws in oppressing Chinese people and dissidents. Presently, China has a vast forced labour camp system and perhaps the most secretive and widely feared penalty system in the world. (1)

By 2001, the estimated number of Falun Gong practitioners sent to labour re-education camps was at least 100,000. Because of the secretive nature of the system it is impossible to know how many are still alive, how many more are being imprisoned or even where they are. Testimonies of overseas Falun Gong practitioners who were sent to labour camps and released later outline days of hard labour lasting over 15 hours, insufficient food and sleep, lack of sanitary facilities and often hazardous working conditions. They were exposed to poisonous chemicals leaving them with swollen hands and even causing blindness. No gloves or protective gear were provided. Those exposed to dangerous chemicals were asked to take a shower at the end of the day unless they were Falun Gong practitioners who were not allowed to shower after being exposed to poisonous chemicals.

Some examples of products produced in labour re-education camps are toys, sports equipment such as balls, chopsticks, brushes, tea, toxic pesticides and machinery parts. The labour camps also provide free labour to dangerous coal mines and large risky construction projects. Journalist Bill Savadove of the South China Morning Post revealed on December 9 2002 that prisons within the vicinity of Fuling city were supplying labour to the Three Gorges Dam project.

Some of the things we bought during Christmas may have been made by people who are forced to work without pay under dreadful conditions and denounce their faith, who are humiliated and tortured when they are not hard at work? In the places where these goods are made, innocent people have been tortured to death.

Back at home my wife made a simple dinner. As we sat down to dine we discussed a case we know concerning chopsticks. There is a company that imports bamboo chopsticks from China. Sometimes in the neatly packed boxed small notes from those who made them can be found. They want us to know that they are made in a labor re-education camp. They just want us to know.