China rebuffs US over detainees probing Ivanka shoe supplier

Bloomberg

China rebuffed an appeal by the U.S. State Department for the release of three labor activists detained while investigating working conditions at a factory that manufactured Ivanka Trump brand shoes.
The suspects are accused of using spying and monitoring equipment, and the investigation is ongoing, foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in response to a question at a regular briefing on Tuesday.
“No country can interfere in China’s sovereign and judicial independence,” Hua said.
New York-based China Labor Watch said the three were working undercover to probe a factory operated by shoe manufacturer Huajian Group in Ganzhou city in the southeast province of Jiangxi when they went missing late last month.
Earlier on Tuesday, the U.S. State Department weighed in for the first time on the detentions of the activists. “We are concerned by reports that Chinese authorities have detained labor-rights activist Hua Haifeng and that two other labor activists—Su Heng and Li Zhao—are also missing and presumed to be detained,” said Alicia Edwards, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs. “We urge China to release them immediately and otherwise afford them the judicial and fair trial protections to which they are entitled.”
All three men have been detained for illegal eavesdropping, Wen Yu, a lawyer representing Hua, said. “It’s a new law,” Wen said. “We don’t know how it’s going to proceed or how it will be used.”
Huajian’s facility is one of 15 factories that have made products for the brand founded by the daughter of US President Donald Trump that China Labor Watch said it has been investigating in the past year. In
a letter sent to Ivanka Trump in April, the group alleged a number of labor violations at two unnamed factories that supplied the Ivanka Trump brand.