Apple working to resolve defamation dispute in China

Apple Computer said yesterday it was working to resolve a dispute over alleged labor abuses by an iPod manufacturer in China.

Hongfujin Precision Industry Co (鴻富錦精密工業), a major exporter owned by a Taiwanese company, filed a defamation lawsuit against two journalists at the state-run newspaper China Business News who ran stories alleging that workers on iPod assembly lines worked under harsh conditions for low pay.

According to local media reports, the Shenzhen Intermediate Court, in Shenzhen, accepted the case and froze the personal assets of the two journalists, Wang You (王佑) and editor Weng Bao (翁寶), of the Shanghai-based paper.

Chinese media and a journalists' advocacy group, Reporters Without Borders, have criticized the move and urged Apple to intercede.

"Apple is working behind the scenes to help resolve this issue," an Apple spokesman, Jill Tan, said yesterday.

She said she could not comment further.

Taiwan-based Foxconn Technology Group (鴻準精密), which owns Hongfujin, has denied the allegations of labor abuses, although Apple Computer issued a report earlier this month acknowledging some violations of its code of conduct.

Reporters Without Borders sent an open letter to Apple Computer chief executive Steve Jobs, urging him to persuade Foxconn to drop its case against the journalists.

"We believe that all Wang and Weng did was to report the facts and we condemn Foxconn's reaction," said the letter, signed by Robert Menard, secretary-general of the group. "We therefore ask you to intercede on behalf of these two journalists."