Jasic Technology

The Jasic Technology Company was at the center of a widely reported controversy regarding the treatment of employees at Jasic Industrial Park in Shenzhen. Workers at the plant cited low pay, long hours, poor working conditions and, in addition, accused the management of Jasic of violating Chinese labor laws through illegal coerced overtime and excessive company fines.

In May 2018 several employees of Jasic petitioned to form a labor union with the All-China In Federation of Trade Unions, which was rejected. The workers decided to continue to build their union independently, workers reported that union organizers were attacked and beaten so after. Tensions sparked on 27 July when twenty nine workers and supporters were arrested and allegedly beaten by Shenzhen Police.

In response to the arrests, at noon on Monday, 6 August a group of eighty demonstrators publicly protested against the detainment outside of the Yanziling police station.

"At noon on Monday, about 80 supporters staged a second rally under the scorching sun outside Yanziling police station in Shenzhen's Pingshan district, about 50 km (31 miles) from the border with Hong Kong. More than 40 Communist Party members and retired cadres, who are part of the country's leading Maoist internet forum, Utopia, joined the rally."

A wide range of public figures condemned Chinese suppression of labor activists including MIT professor Noam Chomsky, Chinese labor activist Li Qiang, University of Hong Kong professor Pun Ngai, Chris Chan King-chi, Jenny Chan, Neo-Hegelian philosopher Slavoj Žižek, American socialist journal Jacobin, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Cornell University.