[imagesource: El Toro Studios]

The image above is a still from a documentary titled Letter from Masanjia.

It tells the story of Sun Yi, an engineer who was imprisoned for practising Falun Gong.

Falun Gong combines meditation and qigong exercises with moral philosophy. It emphasises the cultivation of virtue and identifies as a practice of the Buddhist school, but also incorporates elements drawn from Taoist traditions.

The Chinese government first tolerated the religion, but when its followers increased in numbers, they launched a publicity campaign calling it an “evil cult”.

In February 2008, during a crackdown in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics, Sun Yi was caught.

Arrested during a raid at an underground press, he was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in a labour camp, Masanjia, where he was forced to manufacture Halloween decorations.

BBC described an average workday for Sun Yi (below):

He was wondering why people would buy this kind of scary stuff,” says Canadian film-maker Leon Lee, who would later get to know Sun Yi.

“Until one day a guard told him Western people have this kind of a culture, a so-called festival, and that’s why they are making it.”

Image: Parade Deck Films

Soon black dye covered Sun Yi’s face and body. He worked from 04:00 until 23:00 or midnight, breaking only to eat.

At night, he later recalled, his hands would move as he slept, as if he was polishing tombstones in his dreams.

One night, he decided to take action and penned a note asking for help. He smuggled it into a tombstone kit and hoped for the best.

That’s where Julie Keith (below), a mom in Oregon, comes in.

Image: Leah Nash / The Guardian

She told The Guardian that she bought a pack of discounted Halloween decorations in 2010, stored them away, and forgot about them until her daughter requested a Halloween themed birthday party.

When she opened the pack, Sun Yi’s note fell out.

As I unpacked the decorations, a tightly folded sheet of paper fluttered to the floor. Smoothed out, it revealed a neat, handwritten note. “Sir,” it began.

Image: Flying Cloud Productions

“If you occasionally buy this product, please kindly resend this letter to the World Human Right Organisation. Thousands people here who are under the persecution of the Chinese Communist Party Government will thank and remember you for ever.”

Keith sent a photo of the letter to Human Rights Watch and US Customs, and the PR manager at the charity she worked for contacted her state’s newspaper, the Oregonian.

The story wasn’t published until December 2012.

It would be another six months before I found out for sure. A New York Times reporter made contact with a man claiming to be the letter writer: Sun Yi.

…He had served his two-and-a-half-year term at Masanjia by the time I found his SOS and was aware of the publicity its exposure had whipped up. Using a pseudonym, he wrote to thank me: he said he considered me his sister and would always be indebted.

That same year, many of the re-education through labour camps closed and around 160,000 detainees were set free. There’s no doubt Sun Yi’s letter played a vital role in this.

You can check out the trailer for the documentary about Sun Yi’s experience here:

Sun Yi later estimated he had written roughly 20 letters in total during his time at Masanjia. He had to be careful about slipping them into the tombstone kits because he never knew which ones would be inspected.

“Justice will prevail over evil,” Sun Yi says in the film’s closing scene.

Read more about him and his life here.

[sources:bbc&guardian]