Statement by Adam Ortiz, Deputy Director of Amnesty International, Chicago Office, at Press Conference to Announce Hunger Strike by Midwestern Practitioners

August 31, 2001

Opposite the Chicago Chinese Consulate

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My name is Adam Ortiz, and I am the Deputy Director of the Chicago office of Amnesty International. I am here today to express the support of Amnesty International for the hunger strikers in Masanjia Labor Camp in an effort to protest the inhumane treatment they are receiving there.

Amnesty International is also here today to support members of our Chicago community who engage in this hunger strike protest, many of whom have fled China and found safety here in Chicago.

Let's be clear that "labor camps" is a euphemism used by the Chinese government for concentration camp, a place where prisoners are commonly tortured and ill-treated, worked like slaves, often to death, and denied medical care. Camps such as these are an abomination to the international community.

Today we begin an appeal to Mayor Daley to call upon Chicago's sister-city, Shenyang, where the Masanjia Labor Camp is, to reject the ill-treatment and torture that takes place there.

The recent events in Masanjia take place in the context of an escalation over the last three years of human rights abuses in China. The "strike hard" campaign has resulted in 1800 executions in the last four months, many for such offenses as tax fraud, theft, and bribery. These last three years have seen the extensive repression of religious minorities. And these last three years have also seen the proliferation of the so-called "labor camps" and the use by China of arbitrary imprisonment.

Again, we call on Mayor Daley to condemn the torture and ill-treatment going on in Chicago's sister-city, Shenyang, the home of this brutal labor camp.

Thank you.