He said he knew the gloves were destined for the United States. His tasks included cutting polyester fabric and sewing it together to make work gloves, producing at least 200 pairs a day. “I was like a robot, doing work in the daytime and then returning to the cell (at night),” Lee recalled. He says he was forced to make Milwaukee Tool glove models under grueling conditions while incarcerated at Chishan Prison in China’s central Hunan Province.
Lee, a Taiwanese college administrator, was convicted in China of “subverting state power” in 2017 and released in 2022. Lee Ming-che addresses an audience at an event held by human rights groups in Taiwan, on Dec. His pay? The equivalent of about 48 cents a day. In an interview in Mandarin with Wisconsin Watch from his home in Taiwan, Lee said officials forced him and hundreds of other Chishan prisoners to work roughly 13 hours a day, seven days a week with just a few days off around the Chinese New Year. Lee, a Taiwanese college administrator, was convicted in China of “subverting state power” in 2017 and released last year. The prison in China’s central Hunan Province houses political prisoners like Lee, a renowned human rights activist who met with then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi during her consequential 2022 visit to Taiwan. On second-references to Chinese people quoted in this story, Wisconsin Watch is using their family name.ĭay after day over nearly five years in Chishan Prison, Lee Ming-che walked the 5 minutes from his cell to one of several manufacturing spaces on prison grounds.
Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.Įditor’s Note: In Chinese culture, people typically list their family name first, followed by their given name. Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom.
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