Desperate Note Travels 5,000 Miles Inside Halloween Decoration Set

A handwritten plea for help was discovered in a package of Halloween decorations last October, but no one knew the full story behind it until now.

Julie Keith, 42, who lives in Portland, Oregon, bought the package in 2011 but didn’t open it for a year.

“As I opened some of the styrofoam headstones, a note popped out,” she said according to the Epoch Times. “I opened the note and it was from this person pleading for help in the labor camp in China, and I wasn’t sure what to do with it.”

The letter said in broken English that the writer was trapped in the Masanjia Labor Camp in China’s Liaoning Province, where the decoration set was made.  The camp is notorious for its cruel treatment of prisoners, especially those who were sent there for practicing Falun Gong, the peaceful Chinese spiritual practice that is being persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party.

“If you occasionally buy this product, please kindly resend this letter to the World Human Right Organization,” the letter said. “Thousands people here who are under the persicution [sic] of the Chinese Communist Party Government will thank and remember you forever.”

The letter describes the terrible conditions in the camp, where prisoners are forced to work 15 hours a day for only 10 yuan ($1.60) per month.  They endure torture and verbal abuse, the writer said.

Julie Keith posted the letter on Facebook and it spread all over the news, but no one knew the identity of the mysterious letter writer or if he was even still alive.

Now the answer has finally been revealed.

Mr. Zhang, a technology professional and former inmate of Masanjia Labor Camp, stepped forward in May and said he wrote 20 such letters during his stay at Masanjia, according to the New York Times.

Zhang, like many others, was imprisoned for his faith in Falun Gong.  He spoke up in an interview about China’s labor camps, but for safety reasons he didn’t want his full name published, the NY Times reported.

In the labor camp, he managed to get his hands on pen and paper while cleaning an office.  He wrote the notes secretly at night and kept them hidden in his room until he was able to slip them into packages headed for English-speaking countries.

For two years he kept sending out letters.

“For a long time I would fantasize about some of the letters being discovered overseas, but over time I just gave up hope and forgot about them,” he told the NY Times.

Zhang’s handwriting matched the handwriting in the letter, the NY Times reported.

Other survivors of the camp had similar horrifying stories of torture, such as severe beatings and attacks with electric batons.

Sources: http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/china-news/note-from-chinese-regime-labor-camp-sparks-us-discussion-329474.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/12/world/asia/man-details-risks-in-exposing-chinas-forced-labor.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0