By Maggie Ma and Jason Loftus, Epoch Times Toronto Staff

Aug 05, 2006

Storeowner Leon Emmett. (Courtesy of Leon Emmett)

For Leon Emmett, "Made in China" has two meanings. As the owner of two game stores in urban Toronto that shelve Chinese merchandise, it means staying in business. As a sympathizer of Falun Gong practitioners and others persecuted in China, it means the risk of buying products made through forced labour.

But Emmett has found an answer. Concerned that forced labour could be subsidizing his cheap Chinese goods, he turned around and began helping the victims of persecution in China with the sale of his products--a move his customers have welcomed.

The Chinese communist regime founded its vast system of forced labour camps in the early days of its power under Mao Zedong. It was created to stamp out anyone the regime labelled a political opponent, and the system has survived to this day. According to Chinese law, authorities can sentence anyone to forced labour for up to three years without a trial.

In 1997 the United Nations working group on arbitrary detention estimated that the camps held 235,000 people. Today, experts on the labour camp system say there could be as many as four million held in over 1,000 camps across China.

Since 1999, many of these have been practitioners of Falun Gong--a spiritual group repressed by the communist authorities. Those detained say they have been forced to make everything from chopsticks to Christmas lights and hair products in the camps. Many items are produced for export to Western countries.

Emmett decided to do something about this so that, in his words, he would "be able to sleep at night."

Last August, he started what he called his "Made-in-China Key program," or "MICKEY," by labelling a few of his made-in-China products with stickers. He then collected 10 percent of the sales from the products and donated the money to non-profit groups dedicated to rescuing Falun Gong practitioners from persecution in China.

"I have donated over a thousand dollars and I am going to donate another five hundred soon," Emmett told The Epoch Times .

Meanwhile, he stopped selling toys in his two stores--the "Hairy Tarantula" and his new store, called "Hairy T West"--because "almost all of them are made in China."

After a year with the program, however, Emmett said he needed to find an approach that was more "sustainable." In July his staff began to choose the products from one company each month and raise the prices for that company's products by ten percent for the month.

He asked customers to pay a little more and collected the profits for the Falun Gong rescue efforts.

He has been pleased to find almost unanimous support for his effort from customers. "Only one customer has said no so far," Emmett said.

Emmett's generosity has been warmly welcomed.

"I think it's very good because he not only donated the money to us, he also called on his friends and others to support our efforts to stop the persecution," said Carolyn Jin, president of the Global Mission to Rescue Persecuted Falun Gong Practitioners, which has received donations from Emmett. Her organization has helped rescue nearly 10 practitioners from persecution in China and bring them to Canada.

"Leon wrote that 'everyone can make a difference' and I think that's very important," Jin said. "Even if the money donated is a small amount. The spirit, the effort, is very inspiring."

On Canada Day Emmett began sending letters to other companies that deal with Chinese manufacturers, calling on them to join his campaign and telling them about the Chinese regime's harvesting of organs from live Falun Gong practitioners, the latest atrocity reported in the persecution against Falun Gong.

"This is a modern-day equivalent of the Roman practice of throwing Christians to the lions," said Emmett.

Jin says the money donated is now going toward raising awareness about the organ harvesting, including covering expenses for a nationwide car tour by volunteers. They are encouraging the government to take action.

"All of our staff are volunteers," says Jin, "so the money goes a long way. It goes toward the materials and expenses we need for our rescue campaigns."

Their car tour has covered seven provinces.

In an open letter, Emmett wrote: "Canada means a lot of things to a lot of people--to me it means fairness, and that is an integral part of the way I run my business.

"In fact, the primary tenets of Falun Gong are the same as my approach to business and life: truthfulness (first and foremost), compassion, and patience/fortitude/forbearance. I can't live with myself if I don't do everything I can to wake people up to this horror!"

"We just can't purchase things from there, from sweatshops or factories where they might use slave labour, and so we do not carry things from China at all," said Janice Rich, manager of Ten Thousand Villages, a gift store in Broadmead Centre, Victoria. And this way she can have a clear conscience, she says. "It does give you a good feeling to come to work every day and know that in a small way you're making a difference for thousands of people."

"I have actually taken things off my shelf that were so cheap and so labour-intensive that they could not have been made fairly," says Marga Konig, manager of Foxglove Toys in Market Square. She says many shoppers are now aware of what they buy and where it's made.

Suzanne Rose, manager of Cameron Rose Gifts in Sydney, BC, says she tries to find out how the items she sells are made and if she's suspicious she won't order from that company. She's supportive of Emmett's idea.

"I think anything like that that could make a difference is a good idea," she says, "because there are some terrible things that go on over there, that's for sure."

Source http://www.theepochtimes.com/news/6-8-5/44577.html