I’m pretty skeptical about the concept of something driving someone to suicide. I happen to know a little bit about the topic, enough to know there are usually a host of issues going on in suicide cases, often related to mental health problems and drug abuse. Nonetheless, this case in China is chilling. A worker at Foxcomm, Apple’s big supplier in China, killed himself after losing a prototype for a 4th generation iPhone. Was he ashamed? Possibly. Was he tortured? He was:
According to ND Daily, Sun Danyong, who had been handling a shipment of 16 iPhone prototypes, was set upon by Foxconn’s Central Security Division after one of the prototypes went missing. Unable to take the “unbearable interrogation techniques,” he jumped from a 12-story building on July 16.
Foxconn has already issued a statement apologizing for the incident and admitting that ah section chief of the Central Security Division, surnamed Gu, may have used “inappropriate interrogation methods” such as searching Sun’s house, holding Sun in solitary confinement and possibly beatings. Gu has been suspended without pay and the company is internally investigating the Central Security Division.
An isolated case of torture? Or an isolated case of it being exposed? Regardless, Apple had better do a lot more than express concern about what’s happening behind the curtain of the product that outsold its computers last quarter.
(via Daring Fireball)
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