A Chinese activist who was arrested after investigating working conditions at a factory making Ivanka Trump-branded shoes has said he believes the connection to the US president’s daughter led to his detention.

Speaking for the first time since his detention, Hua Haifeng told the Guardian how he was interrogated in marathon sessions every other day for a month, during which police repeatedly asked him for details of his investigation.

“When I was first taken away by police, I couldn’t understand why I was being arrested,” said Hua, 36. “But once I was released and was reconnected to the outside world, I think it was probably because of the factory’s connection to Ivanka.”

“Before I arrived at the factory I didn’t even know Ivanka had a clothing brand. And it wasn’t until I was released I knew this brand was related to the daughter of the US president.”

Hua and two other investigators, Li Zhao and Su Heng, found evidence of labour abuses at the factory manufacturing Ivanka Trump shoes, including below minimum wage pay, verbal abuse of workers and the use of derogatory language towards female employees. Li and Su were also released on bail on 28 June.

The allegations echoed similar charges of low wages and anti-union intimidation the Guardian found at a factory making Ivanka Trump products in Indonesia.

Calls to Huajian Group, the owner of the factory, have gone unanswered, but it has previously told Associated Press that all allegations of labour violations were “completely not true to the facts, taken out of context [and] exaggerated”. The factory also manufactures products for other US labels and designers.

In June, Abigail Klem, president of the Ivanka Trump brand, told the Guardian in a statement: “Ivanka Trump HQ is committed to only working with licensees who maintain internationally recognised labor standards across their supply chains.”



Ivanka Trump, centre, talks to the IMF chief Christine Lagardeas the UN secretary general António Guterres looks on. Photograph: Michael Ukas/EPA

Ivanka Trump herself, who has not commented on Hua’s case, is an unpaid adviser to her father. Despite criticism of her lack of policy experience, her role in the White House has become increasingly prominent.

The businesswoman and former model twice briefly sat in for her father during G20 meetings in Hamburg, taking a seat alongside the Russian, Chinese and Turkish presidents, the German chancellor and the British prime minister.

Trump relinquished control of her eponymous brand when she took up her White House position, but maintains an ownership stake.

Hua’s case highlights the political sensitivity of brands associated with the family of Donald Trump, who repeatedly criticised China for taking American jobs during his presidential campaign but has since sought warmer relations with President Xi Jinping.

Hua was taken from his hotel in the south-eastern city of Ganzhou on 28 May, with Li and Su, activists working with the New York-based NGO China Labor Watch. The arrests were the first in the organisation’s 17-year history. Hua was interrogated for two days before being placed in a cell with about 20 other prisoners.

During a month of exhausting interrogations, police repeatedly asked Hua for the date and time of his arrival in the city, and details of what he had done at the factory.

He said his interrogators were obsessed with Hua’s watch, which concealed a camera used to document labour conditions.

Hua said he was beaten by a fellow inmate during one of his first days at the detention centre, after which life became a routine of talking to other prisoners, washing clothes and a nightly television ration.

A woman who answered the phone at the Ganzhou public security bureau hung up when contacted by the Guardian.

Hua was released on bail on 28 June, but still faces charges of illegally using surveillance equipment. It is extremely rare for suspects to be granted bail after being criminally charged in China. He is required to report to his local police station and the threat of prosecution remains.

“Right now I’m just doing what the police tell me to do,” Hua said. “There’s a chance they won’t move forward with the case, and I hope if I do what they tell me this can all be over.”

Hua said his seven-year-old daughter cried when she first saw him for the first time since he came out of detention. “My family missed me, this was very scary for them,” he said.

Hua has undertaken undercover investigations at dozens of other factories in recent years; this was his first arrest. The former factory worker has been advocating for better labour conditions since 2003, when he accused his boss of underpaying him.

After winning more than four months of back pay, Hua was emboldened to help others, and has vowed to continue his activism despite his arrest. He plans to take a break from the undercover missions, instead focusing on legal counselling for workers and helping labourers negotiate better conditions.

“Ultimately I can never be sure the real reason for my detention, so I need to be careful,” he said.