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WORLD NEWS Tuesday 18 december 2018

US sportswear traced to factory in China's internment camps

By DAKE KANG Rushan Abbas, a Uighur
MARTHA MENDOZA in Washington, D.C., said
YANAN WANG her sister is among those
Associated Press detained. The sister, Dr.
HOTAN, China (AP) — Chi- Gulshan Abbas, was taken
nese men and women to what the government
locked in a mass detention calls a vocational center,
camp where authorities are although she has no specif-
"re-educating" ethnic mi- ic information on whether
norities are sewing clothes her sister is being forced to
that have been imported work.
all year by a U.S. sportswear "American companies im-
company. porting from those places
The camp, in Hotan, China, should know those prod-
is one of a growing num- ucts are made by people
ber of internment camps in being treated like slaves,"
the Xinjiang region, where she said. "What are they
by some estimates 1 mil- going to do, train a doctor
lion Muslims are detained, to be a seamstress?"
forced to give up their lan- Mainur Medetbek's hus-
guage and their religion band did odd repair jobs
and subject to political before vanishing into a
indoctrination. Now, the camp in February during
Chinese government is also a visit to China from their
forcing some detainees to home in Kazakhstan. She
work in manufacturing and In this file image from undated video footage run by China's CCTV via AP Video, Muslim trainees has been able to glean a
food industries. Some of work in a garment factory at the Hotan Vocational Education and Training Center in Hotan, Xinji- sense of his conditions from
them are within the intern- ang, northwest China. monitored exchanges with
ment camps; others are Associated Press relatives and from the hus-
privately-owned, state-sub- band of a woman in the
sidized factories where de- the company has a factory ports" about the training the situation in one county same camp. He works in an
tainees are sent once they inside a re-education com- centers, but did not specify estimated that more than apparel factory and is al-
are released. pound, and said they pro- when asked for details. 10,000 detainees — or 10 lowed to leave and spend
The Associated Press has vide employment to those "Those reports are com- to 20 percent of the intern- the night with relatives ev-
tracked recent, ongoing trainees who were deemed pletely based on hearsay ment population there — ery other Saturday.
shipments from one such by the government to be evidence or made out of are working in factories, Though Medetbek is un-
factory — Hetian Taida "unproblematic." thin air," the spokeswoman, with some earning just a certain how much her hus-
Apparel — inside an in- "We're making our contri- Hua Chunying, said at a tenth of what they used band makes, the woman
ternment camp to Badger bution to eradicating pov- daily briefing. to earn before. The person in his camp earns 600 yuan
Sportswear, a leading sup- erty," Wu told the AP over However, a dozen people declined to be named out (about $87) a month, less
plier in Statesville, North the phone. who either had been in a of fear of retribution. than half the local mini-
Carolina. Badger's clothes Chinese authorities say the camp or had friends or fam- A former reporter for Xin- mum wage and far less
are sold on college cam- camps offer free vocation- ily in one told the AP that jiang TV in exile said that than what Medetbek's hus-
puses and to sports teams al training for Uighurs, Ka- detainees they knew were during his month-long de- band used to earn.
across the country, al- zakhs and other minorities, given no choice but to tention last year, young "They say it's a factory, but
though there is no way to mostly Muslims, as part of a work at the factories. Most people in his camp were it's an excuse for detention.
tell where any particular plan to bring them into "a of the Uighurs and Kazakhs, taken away in the mornings They don't have freedom,
shirt made in Xinjiang ends modern civilized" world and who were interviewed in to work without compensa- there's no time for him to
up. eliminate poverty in the re- exile, also said that even tion in carpentry and a ce- talk with me," she said.
The shipments show how gion. They say that people people with professional ment factory. "They say they found a job
difficult it is to stop products in the centers have signed jobs were retrained to do "The camp didn't pay any for him. I think it's a concen-
made with forced labor agreements to receive vo- menial work. money, not a single cent," tration camp."
from getting into the global cational training. Payment varied according he said, asking to be iden- New Jersey Republican
supply chain, even though The Xinjiang Propaganda to the factory. Some got tified only by his first name, Congressman Chris Smith,
such imports are illegal in Department did not re- paid nothing, while others Elyar, because he has rela- a member of the House
the U.S. Badger CEO John spond to a faxed request earned up to several hun- tives still in Xinjiang. "Even Foreign Relations Commit-
Anton said Sunday that the for comment. A Chinese dred dollars a month, they for necessities, such as tee, called on the Trump
company would halt ship- Foreign Ministry spokes- said — barely above mini- things to shower with or Administration Monday to
ments while it investigates. woman accused the for- mum wage for the poorer sleep at night, they would ban imports from Chinese
Hetian Taida's chairman eign media Monday of parts of Xinjiang. A person call our families outside to companies associated with
Wu Hongbo confirmed that making "many untrue re- with firsthand knowledge of get them to pay for it." detention camps.q