Amazon Sorry
A whistleblower who exposed illegal working weather condition in a manufacturing plant making Amazon'south Alexa devices says he was tortured before being jailed by Chinese regime.
Tang Mingfang, 43, was jailed after he revealed how the Foxconn factory in the southern Chinese urban center of Hengyang used schoolchildren working illegally long hours to manufacture Amazon'south popular Echo, Repeat Dot and Kindle devices.
Now, after spending 2 years in prison, he is appealing to the college courts to clear his proper noun. He has taken the hard decision to talk publicly, despite being enlightened of the risks of reprisals, because he believes Amazon and its founder, Jeff Bezos, have a responsibleness to support his appeal and that the Observer also has a responsibility to highlight his case.
Tang, who is married with a nine-year-old son, said his father – who died while he was in prison – would accept wanted him to speak upward when he saw young workers existence driveling.
"My father always taught me that I should be a good person and, because I followed my heart and believed that justice should exist served, I reported the serious violations at Hengyang Foxconn. Yet my imprisonment has acquired such corking harm to me and my family," he told the Observer.
He described how he was beaten by his interrogators, handcuffed in stress positions until he could take no more and signed a confession to the law-breaking of infringing trade secrets.
"I refused to sign seven times, and they got angry and handcuffed me to the bottom of the iron frame, unable to stand, squat, sit; only angle, half squatting all night. In the early morning, I could not stand any more," he said.
"I think Amazon should give me an explanation, tell me if I actually deserve to exist sent to jail? If not, Amazon should give me an apology, along with its partner, Foxconn, to assistance me to appeal for a redress, and provide bounty."
Amazon did not answer specific questions put by the Observer, but a spokesperson said: "We do not tolerate violations of our supply chain standards. We regularly appraise suppliers, using independent auditors every bit appropriate, to monitor continued compliance and improvement – if we find violations, we take appropriate steps, including requesting firsthand cosmetic action."
Illegal working practices at the factory were offset revealed in an investigation by the Observer and the Us-based China Labor Watch in 2018. A year after, a second investigation found that Foxconn had tried to solve its subsequent recruitment issues by drafting in schoolchildren to work illegal overtime.
Internal Foxconn documents passed on by Tang formed the ground of the 2nd investigation. Amazon sent its own staff into the manufacturing plant to investigate the labour police force breaches and Foxconn was forced to pay more than £165,000 in compensation for underpaying workers making Repeat and Echo Dot devices in Hengyang.
Meanwhile, Foxconn brought in the Chinese authorities to investigate the leak. Tang was charged, convicted and jailed for two years. He said he believed Amazon acted correctly in addressing the illegal working practices only that it should have intervened on his behalf in line with US law offering protection to whistleblowers and guaranteeing their freedom of spoken language.
When Tang's 80-twelvemonth-old begetter learned of his son's imprisonment, he was taken sick and although his family unit asked for a temporary release on compassionate grounds, the request was refused. "My family wanted to give me a chance to see my begetter for the last time, then they delayed the funeral by three days. This is my biggest regret and the main reason why I would like to keep appealing," he said.
Tang worked for Foxconn monitoring supply levels and had admission to the factory computer system. He said he came across information showing how Foxconn was using temporary workers and schoolchildren to cut costs.
"I was also clear virtually how the student workers were physically punished and assaulted by their teachers. I believe these things are incorrect and illegal," he said.
He said workers regularly exceeded the limit of 36 hours of overtime in a month, with some on the assembly lines exceeding 100 hours a month during busy periods.
Tang said Foxconn had promised to improve working weather condition after the first investigation just its ain internal documents suggested managers were planning to aggrandize the illegal use of workers. "Not just me, many other colleagues believed this is wrong," he said.
"I read a report written by a security guard at Hengyang Foxconn; basically, it talked about how a teacher verbally and physically assaulted a non-cooperative student in front end of everyone, and the educatee cried."
After talking to colleagues about what was going on in the factory, Tang contacted People's republic of china Labor Sentry and agreed to share some of the company documents, which he photographed using his mobile phone.
After the story bankrupt, he said, Foxconn's management launched an investigation, laid off most of the temporary workers and students, and offered rewards to workers who helped to recruit new staff.
People he spoke to in the manufactory told him managers were furious. Unknown to Tang, they started to review CCTV footage to endeavor to identify the mole.
On 16 August 2019 he was arrested for the first time. "I was very scared, considering I had never experienced anything like this; peculiarly afterwards I was handcuffed, I began panicking," he said. He was questioned for two days before existence released and returning to piece of work. A calendar month later, he was arrested again at the manufacturing plant and taken into custody.
He said that earlier his arrest he saw a foreigner whom he believed to be one of the Amazon staff going through his desk drawer and checking the pockets of his compatible on his chair.
Tang claims the statements used to convict him were obtained by the use of torture and should not have been open-door in bear witness.
In a written account of his treatment, he wrote: "While I was detained in the police station for questioning, I endured tremendous physical and mental stress. The officers at the police station used corporal punishments and violence during the interrogation to force me to change my statement and say that I did commit the and then-chosen criminal activities.
"The constabulary officer battered me multiple times during the interrogation, he repeatedly slapped and hit me in my confront and in the back of my head.
"I was likewise tortured during the interrogation process when I refused to collaborate and admit to their baseless accusations."
He said his interrogators repeatedly handcuffed him in stress positions. "I could not stand up up because my hands were chained on to the niggling desk that connected the two armrests, I could non do anything only suffer through such grave pain," he said.
He said he signed a confession subsequently being handcuffed to a bed overnight and because he feared he would be browbeaten again.
Tang said he initially received a sympathetic hearing from the police when he explained that he had only acted to expose illegal activeness in the manufacturing plant and said he understood they were simply doing their duty.
He said the charge of infringing trade secrets requires the company to have suffered a loss simply Foxconn had only been forced to refund what it was required to pay by police. He said for that reason – and that he had acted to expose illegal activity – he refused to accept he was guilty of that charge and he insists the confession used to convict him was obtained illegally, by torture, past a senior officeholder aided by auxiliary officers and, for that reason, his conviction should exist overturned.
Tang said Amazon had members of staff in the factory who he believed were aware of what had happened to him. Although he admitted passing on company documents, he believed he was acting to prevent police-breaking.
"Because I believe the cause of all [this] is that I exposed Hengyang Foxconn'south illegal activities, I believe I am not guilty," he said.
In a letter of the alphabet to Bezos – who is worth an estimated £137bn – Tang urged him to ensure that workers' rights were protected. "Although the price was too high for me, I retrieve the price I paid will all exist worth information technology if only this situation can be brought to your attending and benefit the employees of all Amazon suppliers," he wrote. "Finally, as your faithful admirer, as a quondam employee of your company'southward customer, as a victim, as a son, husband, father, I would like to inquire the following of you lot. Please enquire Hengyang Foxconn to face upwards to its own problems, apologise to me, and come frontwards and communicate with the local court to assist me in the appeal of my case, so that the court can finally revoke my guilty verdict."
Prc Labor Watch director Li Qiang also wrote to Bezos urging him to intervene on behalf of Tang. "CLW believes that Amazon has the responsibility to telephone call for Red china to free this innocent volunteer, who provided the evidence of labour violations in an Amazon supplier mill, and thank him for helping improving workers' conditions. All he did was report violations of workers' rights in an Amazon supplier factory. He did not commit whatsoever illegal acts.
"Information technology is unacceptable and unfair that Tang Mingfang is serving jail time for trying to help Amazon improve the labour weather in its supplier mill."
He said Bezos had not responded to his letter and Amazon had not offered any support for Tang.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jan/30/alexa-factory-whistleblower-i-was-tortured-and-jailed-now-amazon-should-apologise