Xinjiang Tianshan Wooltex Stock Corporation, Ltd. Joins Labour Camps and Prisons to Persecute Falun Gong Practitioners -- Bloody Slave Labour Behind Internationally Renowned Brand (Photo)

Changji Labour Camp in Xinjiang Province (5 km away from Wujiaqu City)

Beginning in 1999, the Xinjiang Tianshan Wooltex Stock Corporation, Ltd. joined labour camps and prisons in Xinjiang Province to persecute Falun Gong practitioners.

The Labour Camp Bureau and Prison Administration in Mainland China assign financial goals to labour camps and prisons. In order to reach that goal and to make money for themselves, the authorities of these institutions conspire with corporations to exploit the detainees' labour.

After the persecution of Falun Gong in Mainland China began in July 1999, many Falun Gong practitioners in Xinjiang Province were sent to various labour camps and prisons. The authorities there collaborated with the Xinjiang Tianshan Wooltex Stock Corporation, LTD. and with the Changji Special Transformer Factory in Xinjiang to force Falun Gong practitioners do slave labour.

Xinjiang Tianshan Wooltex Stock Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Tianshan Wooltex") is one of the first joint venture enterprises in China established after the regulations concerning Sino-foreign joint venture enterprises were published. Tianshan Wooltex is a joint venture woolen textile enterprise, with joint venture capital from four companies, namely Urumqi Woolen Textile Co., Hong Kong Tianshan Woolen Textile Co., Ltd. (Which consists of Hong Kong Peninsula Knitting Co., Ltd., Dongyang (Japan) Spinning Industry Co., Ltd.), Hong Kong International Cotton Industry Co., Ltd. and the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Supply and Market Cooperative.

Since 1990, Tianshan Wooltex has done business with various labour camps and prisons in Xinjiang Province in order to exploit the detainees' labour. They did so in order to lower costs and improve its ability to gain more of an international market share. Currently, the Wulabo Labour Camp, Xinjiang Women's Labour Camp, Changji Labour Camp, No. 3 Prison of Xinjiang Province and No. 5 Prison of Xinjiang Province all have workshops owned by Tianshan Wooltex in their backyards. The detainees at the above-mentioned locations are forced to work for Tianshan Wooltex and mass produce several types of cashmere sweaters. If one could observe how these sweaters are produced, one would recognize the cruel abuse the detainees are subjected to.

Falun Gong Practitioners Are Major Targets For Slave Labour
Xinjiang Tianshan Wooltex Stock Co., Ltd.

In August 2000, male Falun Gong practitioners being held at different labour camps in Xinjiang were sent to Division Six of the Changji Labour Camp. Division Six became the designated place for the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. It is also the main location where products for Tianshan Wooltex are made and processed. Between the years 2000 and 2002, more than 50 Falun Gong practitioners were forced to work for Tianshan Wooltex in labour camp workshops.

When Tianshan Wooltex receives an order, it sends it over to the labour camps and prisons, at the same time providing them with raw materials. It also gives a deadline by which time Tianshan Wooltex will buy back the finished products at an extremely low price. In order to meet the deadline, the guards at the labour camps and prisons often coerce the detainees to work days on end with no sleep.

Many detainees at Division One of Changji Labour Camp in Xinjiang Province are routinely denied sleep several weeks out of the month. They work an average of more than 20 hours a day. They can only take a short nap after dawn on the platform where they make the sweaters. When they work on the machines, they often have to work for one day and one night at a time. Most of them have swollen legs from malnutrition and exhausting labour conditions. The workshop is only 200 meters (about 850 feet) from the cafeteria, but most detainees do not have time to eat breakfast. The guards often get a bucket of porridge -- lunch for the detainees. The guards treat the detainees as robots, and when they are too worn out to work, the guards would give them a whipping to force them to continue.

When seeing workers fall asleep, the guards shock them with electric batons and order the head of the workshop, also an inmate, to hit them with bricks and wooden clubs. If the detainee fails to complete his assigned work, the guard would cuff him to a heating pipe, strip him naked and shock his neck, armpits, abdomen, private areas, mouth and ears with electric batons, in addition to extending their detention term.

Jiang's annihilation policy against Falun Gong, "defame their reputations, bankrupt them financially and destroy them physically" allowed Tianshan Wooltex to provide space and financial support for labour camps and prisons that engage in the exploitation of detainees. They are especially malicious in torturing Falun Gong practitioners.

The guards from Division Six in the Changji Labour Camp force determined Dafa practitioners to do heavy manual labour, to build vegetable cellars in the day and knit sweaters all night long. Exhausted Dafa practitioners often fall asleep at night while knitting the sweaters, and the guards would then poke them with needles and scissors. Dafa practitioner Wang Jianping from Kelamayi has a handicapped left hand and is slow in knitting the sweaters, so the guards threw bricks on his chest and back. Sometimes when the practitioners make a mistake, the inspector would verbally abuse them and extort money from them. Tianshan Wooltex often forces detainees who have no source of income to pay for ruined sweaters, and the result would be that the detainee receives an extension to his term.

Tianshan Wooltex Sends Local Inspectors To Labour Camps And Prisons

Every time government inspectors come to the labour camp, the guards at Division Six fear Dafa practitioners may expose the truth, so they lock the practitioners in the basement or force them to work in the fields until the inspectors have left.

Tianshan Wooltex sends its own inspectors to each workshop at the Changji Labour Camp. These inspectors witness the atrocities of labour exploitation and torture on a daily basis, but they pretend they don't know. Na Ren is one such inspector who overlooks sweater production at Division Six.

People in charge at Tianshan Wooltex at various levels often visit the Changji Labour Camp and prisons. Prior to their visit, the labour camp would put up a banner that reads "Welcome xx to come and inspect." This is still ongoing.

Profits Made Off Slave Labour Are Used To Build More Facilities

When the labour camps and prisons receive large amounts of money from the sale of the sweaters abroad, they would build more office buildings, workshops and confinement rooms. They would also purchase electric batons, handcuffs, torture tools, televisions, and VCDs to reward guards who torture Falun Gong practitioners and recruit more guards to persecute determined Falun Gong practitioners.

Each Sweater Is Cursed at by the Inmates

Other than Falun Gong practitioners, ordinary detainees are also forced to do slave labour. Because of long-term overwork, lack of sleep, malnutrition, stress and lack of medical care, many detainees contracted tuberculosis, hepatitis, scabies, and asthma, among other ailments. However, sick detainees are still forced to work.

Because the detainees are not allowed to take a shower for very long periods of time, lice along with pus and blood from the detainees' body are sometimes rubbed off on the sweaters. Because the inmates loathe being treated as slaves, they intentionally wipe the filthiest things from their bodies and other places on the sweaters as a form of revenge. Because the sweaters are processed several times before they are sold, the dirty things and blood usually disappear after the final step.

After suffering all kinds of torture at Division Six in the Changji Labour Camp, a detainee said, "The first thing I'll do after I go home is to buy a Tianshan sweater and burn it on the spot!"

Here we want to call on all international boards of accreditation, foreign businesses and textile mills, weaving and knitting corporations to boycott the sweaters sold by Tianshan Wooltex, stained with the detainees' blood. Let's join efforts in ending the exploitation of Falun Gong practitioners by Tianshan Wooltex.

Since similar incidents are commonplace in prisons and labour camps all across Mainland China where Falun Gong practitioners are held, we call for Dafa practitioners in China and abroad to expose this crime and tell the world's people about Jiang's persecution of Falun Gong, and to help indirect persecutors to see their role in this crime, and to cut off the evildoers' financial resources.

Attached: reference material

Xinjiang Tianshan Wooltex Stock Corporation, Ltd. tries its best to cover up this crime. The "Tianshan" trademark was identified as a "famous Chinese brand" by the State Administration of Industry and Commerce. "Tianshan" products were awarded the State Quality Certificate of Exemption from Inspection in March 2002. Moreover, Tianshan Wooltex produces sweaters for brands of other well-known enterprises in the world, such as Banana Republic, Neiman Marcus, Holt Renfrew, Ports, Minimum, Bon Genie, Tutti Colori, Espina, Cream, Anivee F, Son June Wan, French Connection, and others. Orders from Banana Republic number between 200,000 and 280,000 pieces every year.

Dafa practitioners who are being illegally held at the Changji Labour Camp for slave labour include Guo Shuyan, Han Jinzhong, Gong Hailiang, Liu Anhong, Ge Lijun, among others.

Person in charge at Tianshan Wooltex:

Zhang Ziqiang, chairman and secretary of the Party Committee. He once held positions of: deputy head of Urumqi City Organization Department, deputy manager of Urumqi City Labour Service Company, head of Urumqi City Goods and Material Bureau.

Xinjiang Tianshan Wooltex Stock Co, Ltd.

Address: No.1 Yinchuan Road, Urumqi, Xinjiang, China

Post Code: 830054

Tel: 86-991-4311866-6834

Fax: 86-991-4310472

E-Mail: [email protected]

Xinjiang Tianshan Wooltex Hong Kong Office Ltd

Address: Block B&C, 9/F, 702 Castle Peak Road, Hop Hingind Bldg, Kowloon, Hong Kong

Tel: 852-27418591

Fax: 852-27860197

Changji Labour Camp in Xinjiang

Office: 86-994-5816156

Division One: 86-994-5816100

Division Six: 86-994-5816092

Division Five: 86-994-5816303

Watchdog Division: 86-994-5816389

Statistics Division: 86-994-5816276

Perpetrators at the Changji Labour Camp:

Zhu Xuefei: former political secretary of Changji Labor Camp, currently political secretary of the Wusu Labour Camp in Xinjiang

Li Jianjiang: currently political secretary of Changji Labour Camp

Wang Xiaofei: deputy head of the labour camp

Zhang Yan: deputy head of the Administration Section

Gu Jianhai: former instructor of Division Six, which specializes in the persecution of Falun Gong

Chen Jiang: current instructor of Division Six

Tian Hu: deputy head of Division Six

Ma Longyue: deputy head of Division Six

Wang Feng: instructor of Division Six

Wang Qi: instructor of Division Six

Ning Tao: instructor of Division One

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2004/3/9/69369.html