Police admonish Foxconn snoop
- Source: Global Times
- [02:05 June 01 2010]
- Comments
Zhu posted a message on the Internet on May 17 to invite volunteers to look into the plight at the factory.
A group of 12 people consisting of legal workers, a teacher and migrant workers were accepted to work at the company on May 19.
One week later, they published a report saying the company uses "military style management," and outlined 10 problems they say the company ignored.
They also revealed that after the 11th suicide attempt on May 25, Foxconn ordered workers to sign agreement, which stipulates that self-injury or suicide will not lead to compensation, according to Shanghai based IT-Times.
"One thing for sure is that I wasn't lying," Zhu said.
"Everything in our report is based on facts and our observation, I'm not breaking any laws."
The Guangzhou-based Southern Weekly also sent a journalist to work for Foxconn last month who labored for 28 days and then published a report.
Chen Tianben, a professor at the Chinese People's Public Security University, said that unlike journalists, private investigations should be limited.
"In this case, as long as some commercial secrets concerning the company was not compromised, the individual has rights to record what they observed," Chen said.
Zhu was in the media spotlight in 2008 after he tried to auction off the domain name 5.12.com, the date of the devastating Sichuan earthquake. He pledged to use the money for charity but it failed.
