Dear readers:
We have just learned that Kim Joo hyun, a 26-year-old man who worked in the Samsung electronics LCD factory in Chun-ahn city in Korea, jumped from the roof of the dormitory and killed himself in the early morning of January 11. He suffered from skin disease due to chemicals and depression because of severe job stress. This shocking news is even more disturbing since it follows a rash of similar suicides by young workers at the Foxconn factory in China and inspires us to increase our determination to bring justice for the Samsung workers and families. He is the second suicide at Samsung this month! See the article by Elizabeth Grossman at http://huff.to/eYQGXr for more background and details.
In memory of Kim Joo hyun, we ask that you join the Samsung Accountability Campaign on the Causes page at:
http://www.causes.com/causes/546307-samsung-accountability-campaign?m=79a39276
Already more than 800 people have joined and there have been many important campaign updates posted to keep people aware of new developments. Please join this Cause and continue your support for the Samsung workers and families. Thanks!
Also, the campaign is asking that you sign the International Petition to support Samsung workers & families.
To date, more than 450 key activists and leaders from around the world have endorsed the statement and list of demands contained in the petition. To see the entire text and to view the list of endorsements, see http://www.gopetition.com/petition/40246.html .
Thanks very much for your support and please let your friends know – we must support the people who are suffering while making the technology that we rely on!
My heart goes out to the parents of Kim Joo hyun, especially as his death was preventable. Please know you have supporters in other countries who are spreading the word about Samsung in hope that we can prevent more unnecessary deaths. I hope your fight for justice will eventually make it easier to live with your pain.
Would you believe I had brain damage by using a 1st generation Samsung LCD monitor about 9 years ago when LCD monitors weren’t so common and were at the beggining stage? Here’s my situation (this is NOT a spam):
“So this is an incident I didn’t tell anyone not even to my parents and kept to myself, it was 7 and half years ago since I came to California, so it was back in 2002 as an international student with F-1 visa. Few months later I purchased a Samsung lcd monitor model 570V TFT 15”, it was a 1st generation lcd model and one of the first to be released in the market if not the first. When I started to use it I felt some effects on my head, at first I thought it was normal because it happens when you use other monitors as well (but not as much as this one) but after about 3 months of use I started to feel insensitive, I felt like my brain was “burned” (I can even feel the frontal lobe damaged specially the left side). I stopped using that monitor and told my dad about this issue but he wouldn’t believe me. The weird thing is that the monitor would give me a very bad impression even when turned off and every time I approached it or entered the room where it was the right side of my head would become bristled, I don’t know why, maybe some kind of instinctive reaction or because of the monitor itself altough I believe it’s the latter.
After a year we moved to Florida, there I decided to throw it away for fear that anyone else would become harmed so I cut the cords and threw it away, I was scolded by my dad for that. Time passed (I was still suffering the aftereffects, and at this point I was only insensitive), and we bought another monitor, this time a CRT monitor from another brand (emachines), after a few months of use my situation started to get worse: my left hand would become sweaty, I couldn’t walk right, I would have strange reactions, disgusting images would go through my mind and as a result I have to spit all the time, I felt like something disgusting was in front of my face, couldn’t sleep well, eat well, I couldn’t socialize normally and thus couldn’t learn the language well. I had to quit college although I had other reasons to quit as well, people in the church would point their finger at me. (Do you know when your body is out of your control and you have reactions you don’t want to have, but you are not like this?) People would call me disgusting wherever I went, coworkers would insult and defame me, I quit job after a month because of the pressure and till now I can’t get another job because of the bad experience and lack of confidence because of my situation, and because I’m overstaying my visa. Even my parents are suffering and even they insult me. (I still have most of the symptoms mentioned above.)
I’ve been struggling till now and at this point I’m pretty jaded, I’m much better than I was then, but I’m only getting better just little by little. I don’t think it was karma, I didn’t do anything in the past to deserve this. I asked my dad to send me to Korea since my student visa expired, and I don’t like the idea of living here illegally, but he tries to discourage me, I think for fear that I be a disgrace to my relatives and cause burden to them, also for fear that I become a burden if I go to the army, but my plan is to file a case there and sue the company that caused this to me or whatever way necessary to have justice done and clear my name. I don’t know if I have necessary evidence since the harmful product is not with me anymore, the only evidence is my brain (which I plan to get a MRI scan of) and my parents’ testimonies. Nothing what I’m writing here is exaggeration or fiction but the truth.”
-2009.09.13-
If anyone could help me with this I’d appreciate it. Here’s my email moshiso7@hotmail.com