This essay, dated March 7, 2019, uses the NHK BS1 documentary Letter from Masanjia as a starting point to denounce the reality of China’s re-education labor camps, torture, forced labor, and systematic human rights abuses under the Chinese Communist regime.
By focusing on the tragedy of Sun Yi, the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, the use of slave labor in export production, and the stance of IMADR and Japanese media toward China, it argues that China is one of the greatest human-rights-abusing states in human history.

2019-03-07
China’s infamous prisons and re-education through labor camps are products of a government-imposed totalitarian system.
The people confined there are forced to work like slaves and are exploited for the production of export goods.

A fair number of viewers probably watched the documentary film Letter from Masanjia on NHK BS1 the night before last.
In truth, it is precisely in the Watch 9 time slot that this documentary should have been broadcast.
China and the Korean Peninsula, lands of “bottomless evil” and “plausible lies,” are peoples truly fond of gruesome torture, but what proved that they are indeed lands of “bottomless evil” and “plausible lies” was the fact, as the documentary made clear, that since the dawn of history they have continued to inflict on their own people gruesome tortures that no decent human being could imagine committing….
And yet, for the sake of anti-Japanese propaganda, they brazenly and calmly display such atrocities in facilities presented to textbooks, children, and tourists as the work of the Japanese military, thereby shifting their own crimes onto others.
That was what this demonstrated.
The time has long since come for not only Japanese people but people throughout the world to know their true nature.
If to “bottomless evil” and “plausible lies” one adds the evil of one-party Communist dictatorship, what results….
Is a condition so appalling as to be scarcely believable.
Even so, the depth of the guilt of Asahi Shimbun and NHK, which fawn over the one-party dictatorship of the Chinese Communist Party and over Korea….
All the employees of those two companies deserve nothing less than to fall into hell and suffer the severest torment of Enma, King of Hell.
And even so, the fact that Sun Yi, a man of such nobility, after enduring such torture and finally being released, was in the end assassinated by the Chinese authorities….
And that his wife, who possessed a heart as wonderful as that of a Japanese person….
A woman whose righteous heart was visible at a glance, decided to divorce the Sun she loved from the depths of her soul….
In order to prevent the persecution by the authorities from extending to her own parents and family as well.
China is the greatest human-rights-abusing state in human history.
And yet that very China sits as a member of the UN Human Rights Commission.
Such is the absurdity of this world.

As for IMADR, which under the influence of China joyfully engages in anti-Japanese activity.

Officers and Staff.
What is IMADR.
Organization Overview.
Officers and Staff.
Access.

List of officers of IMADR, the International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism.

Co-Chairs.
Nimalka Fernando.
Lawyer.
Mushakoji Kinhide.
Scholar of international politics.

Vice-Chairs.
Mario Jorge Yutzis.
Former member of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
Bernadette Etienne.
Co-chair of MRAP, the Movement Against Racism and for Friendship Among Peoples.
Kumisaka Shigeyuki.
Chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the Buraku Liberation League.

Executive Director.
Nishijima Fujihiko.
Secretary-General, Central Secretary-General of the Buraku Liberation League.

Directors.
Romani Rose.
Chairman of the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma.
Rodolfo Stavenhagen.
Professor, Colegio de Mexico / former UN Special Rapporteur on Indigenous Peoples.
Theo van Boven.
Professor, Maastricht University.
Brunado Fatima Natisan.
Advisor, Society for Rural Education and Development.
Durga Sob.
Founding Representative, Feminist Dalit Organization.
Michael Sharp.
Assistant Professor, York College, City University of New York.
Kato Tadashi.
Chairman, Hokkaido Ainu Association.
Inaba Nanako.
Professor, Sophia University, National Network in Solidarity with Migrant Workers.
Okuda Hitoshi.
Buraku Liberation and Human Rights Research Institute.
Okajima Masaki.
Central Executive Committee Member, Japan Teachers’ Union.
Kusano Ryuko.
Chair, Religious Coalition on the Dowa Issue, Otani-ha Shinshu.
Kim Shuichi.
Secretary-General, Kanagawa Mintoren.
Shin Hye-bong.
Professor, Aoyama Gakuin University.
Iwane Takanao.
Chairman, Tokyo Corporate Network for Human Rights Awareness.
Miwa Atsuko.
Director, Asia-Pacific Human Rights Information Center.

Auditors.
Akai Takashi.
Central Finance Committee Chairman, Buraku Liberation League.
Kubo Makoto.
Professor, Osaka Sangyo University.

Advisors.
Helene Zackstein.
Expert in gender and child protection.
Penda Mbow.
Professor, Cheikh Anta Diop University of Dakar.
Hayashi Yoko.
Lawyer, Chair of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women.
Tomonaga Kenzo.
Honorary Director, Buraku Liberation and Human Rights Research Institute.
Matsumoto Ryu.
Former Minister of the Environment.

Secretariat Structure.
Komori Megumi.
Acting Secretary-General.
Wada Kenichi.
Deputy Secretary-General, Central Executive Committee member of the Buraku Liberation League.
Catherine Cado.
Deputy Secretary-General, Japan specialist.
Kaneko Martin.
Deputy Secretary-General, Professor at Japan Women’s University.
Terada Masahiro.
Deputy Secretary-General, Secretariat head of the Religious Coalition on the Dowa Issue.
Takahashi Kyosuke.
Deputy Secretary-General, National Corporate Liaison Council on the Dowa Issue.
Komatsu Taisuke.
Deputy Secretary-General, Geneva Office.

Staff.
Kannari Fumiko.
Tokyo Office.

These people, together with Oe, Murakami, and the people below, are human garbage.

To seize upon the length of Carlos Ghosn’s detention and the like….
Ghosn, far from being tortured or anything of the kind, was in fact given extraordinarily generous treatment for a criminal, beyond what would be imaginable in other countries….
To the Western media, beginning with France, which commented as though Japan were a backward country, and to the Japanese media that, in concert with them, had the so-called experts favored by Asahi and NHK criticize Japan.
Criticize China first, and only then speak.
Know that so long as you leave China and Korea untouched, you do not possess the slightest qualification to say anything at all.
Know the shame of yourselves, you who style yourselves “experts.”
Those who watched the following documentary broadcast the night before last will agree with my anger.

Sun Yi was arrested by the police for no reason other than being a Falun Gong practitioner and was confined in the notorious Masanjia Re-education Through Labor Camp, where torture and the like were carried out.
An American woman, Julie Keith, discovered in a Halloween gift sent to her daughter a letter written by Sun Yi in the Masanjia labor camp.
She made its contents public through the media, and the world was shocked by the horrifying facts.
Sun Yi was later released from the labor camp and exposed through comics the reality of the human-rights persecution taking place there.
Most astonishing of all was the fact that he filmed part of the documentary inside China itself.
There, the persecution that Sun and his family suffered on a daily basis from the Chinese Communist Party was vividly captured.
After later escaping from China, Sun met Julie Keith, but tragically died in Indonesia, where he had fled.

China’s infamous prisons and re-education through labor camps are products of a government-imposed totalitarian system.
The people confined there are said to be forced to work like slaves and exploited to produce export goods.
The “slave labor” of prisons in China has the following problems.

1. It violates trade agreements and laws.
   Despite the existence of trade agreements and laws prohibiting the export of goods derived from labor camps, it has been found that more than one hundred types of products, including food, clothing, household goods, and cosmetics, are produced in China’s labor camps through forced labor.
   These products are sold in the United States, Australia, Asia, Russia, and Europe.
2. Where are the prisons and labor camps?
   According to one investigation, there are nearly one hundred prisons, labor camps, and detention centers in China that produce goods through slave labor.
   Most of them are located in Anhui, Beijing, Gansu, Guangdong, Henan, Heilongjiang, Shandong, Shanghai, and Tianjin.
3. Lack of regulation.
   The international community has established standards to protect food and clothing in production from infectious disease.
   However, no inspectors exist in Chinese labor camps to conduct sanitary inspections of food or clothing.
   For example, in the Yunnan Women’s Labor Camp, there was an incident in which a Falun Gong practitioner refused to work in a biscuit factory.
   When the labor camp authorities asked the reason, the detainee answered as follows.
   “Would you want to buy these biscuits?
   The sacks of flour are piled on a mud-covered floor, and the machines used to make the biscuits are covered in dust.
   Do you think the biscuits produced there meet hygiene standards?
   Our toilets are dirty and foul-smelling, and there is not even a clean space to place our feet.
   We do not even have towels to wipe our hands, so at best we wipe them on our aprons.
   Would you want to eat such biscuits?
   I practice Falun Gong, which values truth and compassion, so I cannot make food that harms other people.”

Let us look at an example that occurred in the First Women’s Labor Camp of Inner Mongolia.
Most of the prisoners were sickly and held in solitary cells.
These elderly women were not suited to working on a production line.
As a result, they were forced to do work such as removing lint from sweaters.
In order to complete the work within the designated time, they had no choice but to use filthy shoe brushes and to fold clothes with dirty hands.
These goods were then exported to countries all over the world.

4. No regard for the environment or health.
   Chinese labor camps are ideal places for companies to escape regulations and safety standards.
   The following is an example from a labor camp in Heilongjiang Province.
   The prisoners were made to handle toxic rubber raw materials used in processing gloves and car seats.
   The camp itself was filled with an acrid smell and toxic wastewater so severe that even the guards could hardly endure it.
   When the technical team within the labor camp carried out measurements, extremely high levels of carcinogenic substances were detected.
   After seeing these results, the guards no longer wanted to enter the factory and preferred even in the freezing winter to remain outdoors.
   The prisoners, meanwhile, were forced to meet high production quotas, and many suffered severe disorders such as nosebleeds, palpitations, and breathing difficulties.
5. Inhuman schedules.
   Slave laborers must work from ten to twenty hours a day.
   When production quotas are high, the workers are unable even to close their eyes and rest, and this continues for days.
   According to estimates, about 36 percent of slave laborers are forced to work twelve to fourteen hours a day, 25 percent are forced to work sixteen to eighteen hours, and 19 percent are made to work fourteen to sixteen hours.
6. Unpaid labor.
   Detained laborers are basically not paid at all, and only a small lucky minority receive a meager wage.
   In an actual case, it has been confirmed that in a women’s labor camp in Shandong Province, some received payments ranging from about one hundred yen to about two thousand yen.
7. Apparel production is expected to increase.
   Chinese prisons, which have already established production capacity for food and machinery, are now focusing on clothing production.
   A World Bank report published in 2016 said that China is the world’s largest apparel manufacturer, accounting for 41 percent of global production.
   Industry sources point out that about 10 percent of China’s apparel shipments are produced in labor camps.
   According to the investigative report The Production of Slave-Labor Products by Falun Gong Practitioners in China, the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Seventh prisons and labor camps in Zhejiang Province have signed long-term contracts with Chinese clothing manufacturers.
   More than twenty thousand laborers, including illegally detained Falun Gong practitioners, work in those enterprises.
   In this way, labor camps produce clothing through slave labor and sell it in China and around the world.

Note.
Re-education through labor.
This is a system by which labor re-education management committees under local governments throughout China may detain citizens and subject them to forced labor for such reasons as “disrupting social order,” but because there is no trial and the grounds are vague and open to arbitrary interpretation, it is said to be a system by which any citizen who complains against the government can be detained.
The detention period is nominally up to three years, but because a further one-year extension is permitted, in practice detention can last up to four years.
Moreover, it is said that by detaining a person again after release, confinement can effectively continue forever.
Wikipedia.
Translated by Hideki Konno.