A Chinese labourer has hidden a note detailing his desperate circumstances inside a 'graveyard kit' from KMart.
It was like a fortune cookie, only the news was all bad.
Julie Keith opened her box of Halloween decorations only to find a letter from a Chinese labourer telling how he is tortured, beaten, and being paid less than $2 a month.
The unsigned note was a message in a bottle from the other side of the world to this woman in Oregon, begging for help and asking whoever found it to send it on to the "World Human Right Organization".
"People who work here (at the Mashanjia Labour Camp in Shenyang, China) have to work 15 hours a day without Saturday Sunday break and any holidays," the handwritten note says.
"Otherwise they will suffer torturement, beat and rude remark, nearly no payment (10 yuan/1 month)."
The Chinese Government operates many forced-labour camps for criminals – but ‘criminals' can include political dissidents or ‘cult adherents' who follow specific religions and are imprisoned without trial.
"People who work here suffer punishment… without court sentence… many of them are Falun Gong practitioners, who are totally innocent," the letter continues. Falun Gong is a spiritual practice and its members are often targeted by the Communist regime.
According to The Oregonian, Human Rights Watch could not confirm the origin or authenticity of the note, but said "it is fair to say the conditions described in the letter certainly conform to what we know about conditions in re-education through labour camps."
Ms Keith found the note taped to some Styrofoam gravestones – a graveyard kit she bought for her daughter's Halloween party and says she believes it's real. If not, it's one hell of an April Fool's joke.
Kmart and the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations are looking into the matter.
But no human rights groups are going to do anything about it.
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