Foxconn Worker Commits Suicide After iPhone Prototype Disappears

[btarunr]

Apple is apparently hard at work cooking up what will become the successor to the iPhone 3G S. In China, an army of parts designers are working on the phone's circuit boards and components. Leading them is Foxconn in Shenzhen, a city in the industry-heavy Guangdong province near Hong Kong.

At Foxconn, a 25-year-old college graduate working in product communications, Yong Sun Dan, was in charge of the phone's prototypes. On Thursday, July 9, he set out to pick up 16 prototype units from the factory. He would later discover that one was missing according to DigitalBeat. His theory was that he left it at the factory. On Monday, July 13 he unhappily reported it to his boss.

Two days later, three Foxconn employees broke into his apartment and searched it. Sun, according to an IM exchange, also may have been detained and physically abused during the search.

The story came to an end of Thursday at 3 a.m. when Yong Sun Dan leapt from the window of his apartment building to his death. The tragic story showcases the potentially deadly game of intrigue and leaks that blog sites play. On the other side of the aisle, it shows the tremendous pressure that manufacturers like Foxconn feel about defending the secrecy of its star products.

Source (http://www.dailytech.com/Chinese+Worker+Commits+Suicide+After+iPhone+Protot ype+Disappears/article15743.htm)

All the secrecy so that Steve Jobs could walk a stage in front of his iFags, holding his IV fluids in one hand, and a new gadget in the other http://tpucdn.com/forums/images/smilies/shadedshun.gif

[Iarwain]

Yikes. Tough work environment.

[FordGT90Concept]

Sounds to me like he was pushed.

[Shadowfold]

Apple are such a friendly company!

[Wile E]

Sounds to me like he was pushed.

I agree

Apple are such a friendly company!

Except Apple wasn't involved aside from it being a prototype of their phone. It was Foxconn.

[Papahyooie]

Committed suicide... wow... yea that *could* happen... sounds fishy to me too.

[FreedomEclipse]

Just reading about this in the morning papers myself. & It angers me #1 because I am chinese. #2 because their playing right into the hands of the people that constantly claim that working environments are crap in Asia - things such as paying people as little as 50p a day just to work in factory.


the Foxconn security broke into his apartment & beat the guy up. - Foxconn's Security Chief has since been suspended from duty.

why do people have to go that far? & since its not the first time China has been in the last 4years, it makes me sick & it makes me ashamed to be Chinese.

I hope foxconn get ripped apart by the shrinking economy & vanishes off the face of the earth - companies that have no value for human life let alone their OWN staff do not deserve to remain operational.

Death to Foxconn,

[dr emulator (madmax)]

Just reading about this in the morning papers myself. & It angers me #1 because I am chinese. #2 because their playing right into the hands of the people that constantly claim that working environments are crap in Asia - things such as paying people as little as 50p a day just to work in factory.


the Foxconn security broke into his apartment & beat the guy up. - Foxconn's Security Chief has since been suspended from duty.

why do people have to go that far? & since its not the first time China has been in the last 4years, it makes me sick & it makes me ashamed to be Chinese.

I hope foxconn get ripped apart by the shrinking economy & vanishes off the face of the earth - companies that have no value for human life let alone their OWN staff do not deserve to remain operational.

Death to Foxconn,there are bad people worldwide ,no one should feel ashamed of what someone else does just because they come from the same race/ country ,as i've said before i don't hate chinese people ,just what they do to animals, especially after seeing the videos off youtube ,if people of any race colour or creed want to eat animals they should have the decency to kill them first ,not have the bizaare idea that it tastes better if you beat the crap out of it and make it suffer,now that's just wrong .
but the beating reminds me of something that happened in the uk i don't remember what it was about but it also involved chinese people, imigrants i think , difference was they where tortured and killed brutaly and the cat they had was drowned
,but waffle aside it's like when black people murder someone or do something bad ,white people seem to jump on the story and pat themselves on the back saying just how civillised they are in comparison and how bad said race is
it's a very two faced world

another sad fact is that if people over there weren't paid 50p a day we'd all have to pay extortionate prices for electricals, so we all have to have some thoughts for them no health care no welfare
only god knows how people survive

[DaMulta]

http://b.mektroid.net/thoses_are_my_shoes.jpg

http://img512.imageshack.us/img512/3558/japanmail.jpg

They must have high standards in China also!



Dark Humor....

[HossHuge]

remember folks, Asia has the highest suicide rates in the world. People are dropping like raindrops here. It doesn't help that the news here reports on everyone of them.

[Wile E]

remember folks, Asia has the highest suicide rates in the world. People are dropping like raindrops here. It doesn't help that the news here reports on everyone of them.

Yeah, but I really don't think suicide is what happened here. Sounds a bit too fishy to me.