Forced-labour prisoners killed in Chinese mine blast

dpa German Press AgencyPublished: Tuesday October 17, 2006

Beijing- Thirteen people who died in a southwestern Chinese coal mine were prisoners forced to labour, a local official and a rights group said on Tuesday. The 13 miners died and seven were injured after gas exploded underground at the Furong Coal Mine in Yibin city, Sichuan province, the State Administration of Work Safety said on its website.

An official at Furong confirmed by telephone that all the workers at the mine were prisoners. "Not only the prisoners, the guards also work underground," the Furong official told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa The prisoners worked at Furong's Zhongpingtong mine under the supervision of the Chuan Nan (Southern Sichuan) Prison, the Hong Kong-based Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy said. The mine employs an estimated 3,000 prisoners, with about 100,000 unpaid prisoners working at "dangerous" coal mines nationwide, the centre said. Under China's "re-education through labour" concept, most citizens confined to prisons and labour camps are required to work.

The families of the prisoners who died at Zhongpingtong have still received no compensation after mine managers refused to meet their demand for 200,000 yuan (25,000 dollars) each, the centre said. The mine had a designed annual capacity of 1.2 million tons, the safety administration said. Nine people died in a previous accident at the mine in December 2001, state media said.

About 6,000 coal miners were killed in accidents in China last year, according to official figures. Out-of-date equipment, illegal mining as well as poor safety systems and supervision are behind many accidents.

From: http://rawstory.com/news/2006/Forced_labour_prisoners_killed_in_C_10172006.html