Chinese prison in Tesco scandal offers ‘re-education’, and served pizza at Christmas, its boss says
- Inmates choose to take part and are paid for some of their work, Qingpu Prison director claims on state media
- British media had reported that a child found a message in a greeting card apparently written by an inmate who said forced labour was used
Li Qiang, director and Communist Party secretary of Qingpu District Prison, said the report in The Sunday Times was groundless and based on “rich imagination”, China’s state broadcaster CCTV reported.
Li’s defence of the prison came after a six-year-old girl in London found a message written inside a greeting card bought from a Tesco supermarket, which said it had been packed by foreign prisoners against their will.
Tesco has suspended the Chinese supplier of the Christmas cards – a printing company in Zhejiang, about 100km from Shanghai – while it investigates.
The writer of the hidden message had asked whomever found it in the card to notify human rights organisations and contact Peter Humphrey, a former British journalist who spent 23 months in Chinese prisons, including Qingpu. The father of the girl who found it contacted Humphrey, who took the story to The Sunday Times.