A note, which claims to be an SOS message from a Chinese Prisoner, has been found in a sock in Penneys on Mary Street.
The note is similar to one uploaded to Reddit in August. It also claims to be written by a man who says that he has been imprisoned in Lingbi County for reporting corrupt officials. It was found in a sock in the UK.
The current note was discovered by a shopper living in Dublin. He shared the note with Newstalk who in turn shared it with Amnesty International.
Amnesty International provided Newstalk with this translation:
“I am a 39-year-old man living at [gives specific address], Lingbi County, Suzhou City, Anhui Province. On 29 June 2014, I was falsely accused and framed by the public security leadership of the Lingbi County Government for going to Beijing to report corrupt officials to the state leaders using my real name.
“I have been illegally and forcibly detained in the Lingbi County Detention Centre (Prison) since then and suffered from serious torture and persecution. I have been maimed.”
The author asks that media outlets share the message of his letter.
The letter ends, “Now only the state leaders or media exposure can help to save me.”
It also claims that the author’s his wife has been beaten – and includes a contact number for his brother. When Newstalk called this number it was out of service.
After an investigation by Primark, the company said that it has not found “any link” between the document and the factory in China where the socks were manufactured.
In a statement to Newstalk, Primark said that it carried out an “unannounced inspection” of the factory – and found no “link between the garment, the author of the note nor any evidence of forced labour.”
A Primark spokesperson in Ireland said “Primark has carried out a thorough investigation into the note found in a garment bought in its Mary Street store including carrying out an unannounced inspection of the factory concerned.
When a similar letter was discovered in a pair of trousers bought in a Primark store in Belfast, Amnesty’s Northern Ireland programme director, Patrick Corrigan said that it is “difficult to know” if these notes are genuine, before adding that “the fear has to be that this is just the tip of the iceberg.”
H/T Newstalk
