Tohnain Emmanuel Njong. That's the name of the Chinese prisoner who left a letter in a Saks Fifth Avenue bag.
In September 2012, a woman by the name of Stephanie Wilson, found the note. The letter, according to DNAinfo, was a desperate plea from Njong, who wrote: "HELP HELP HELP" and "We are ill-treated and work like slaves for 13 hours every day producing these bags in bulk in the prison factory... Thanks and sorry to bother you." Wilson said she "could not believe what she was reading."
The letter was was accompanied by a picture of Njong in an orange jacket and a Yahoo email address on the back. Wilson brought the note to the Laogai Research Foundation, an advocacy group that helps fight human rights abuses in Chinese prisons—and later the Department of Homeland Security—which then promoted a search for Njong.
For the first time ever, Njong, who was forced to make paper shopping bags or sew clothes at a factory, speaks up about the note. In the in-depth article for DNAinfo, Njong reveals he wrote five different letters in five different languages in prison, where he served three-years for fraud, a crime he says he never committed. He said he had hoped someone would find the note and let his family know his whereabouts. "It was the biggest surprise of my life," Njong said about Wilson's discovery. “I am just happy that someone heard my cry."
Read the captivating story in its entirety here.
[via DNAinfo New York]
