Alexa whistleblower demands Amazon apology after being jailed and tortured

Now, after spending two years in prison, he is appealing to the higher courts to clear his name. He has taken the difficult decision to talk publicly, despite being aware of the risks of reprisals, because he believes Amazon and its founder, Jeff Bezos, have a responsibility to support his appeal and that the Observer also has a responsibility to highlight his case.

He described how he was beaten by his interrogators, handcuffed in stress positions until he could take no more and signed a confession to the crime of infringing trade secrets.

Illegal working practices at the factory were first revealed in an investigation by the Observer and the US-based China Labor Watch in 2018. A year later, a second investigation found that Foxconn had tried to solve its subsequent recruitment problems by drafting in schoolchildren to work illegal overtime.

Internal Foxconn documents passed on by Tang formed the basis of the second investigation. Amazon sent its own staff into the factory to investigate the labour law breaches and Foxconn was forced to pay more than £165,000 in compensation for underpaying workers making Echo and Echo Dot devices in Hengyang.

Meanwhile, Foxconn brought in the Chinese authorities to investigate the leak. Tang was charged, convicted and jailed for two years. He said he believed Amazon acted correctly in addressing the illegal working practices but that it should have intervened on his behalf in line with US law offering protection to whistleblowers and guaranteeing their freedom of speech.

Tang worked for Foxconn monitoring supply levels and had access to the factory computer system. He said he came across information showing how Foxconn was using temporary workers and schoolchildren to cut costs.

He said workers regularly exceeded the limit of 36 hours of overtime in a month, with some on the assembly lines exceeding 100 hours a month during busy periods.

After talking to colleagues about what was going on in the factory, Tang contacted China Labor Watch and agreed to share some of the company documents, which he photographed using his mobile phone.

People he spoke to in the factory told him managers were furious. Unknown to Tang, they started to review CCTV footage to try to identify the mole.

He said that before his arrest he saw a foreigner whom he believed to be one of the Amazon staff going through his desk drawer and checking the pockets of his uniform on his chair.

Tang claims the statements used to convict him were obtained by the use of torture and should not have been admissible in evidence.

He said he signed a confession after being handcuffed to a bed overnight and because he feared he would be beaten again.

Tang said he initially received a sympathetic hearing from the police when he explained that he had only acted to expose illegal activity in the factory and said he understood they were simply doing their duty.

Tang said Amazon had members of staff in the factory who he believed were aware of what had happened to him. Although he admitted passing on company documents, he believed he was acting to prevent law-breaking.

He said Bezos had not responded to his letter and Amazon had not offered any support for Tang.