U.S. urges China to free activists who probed Ivanka Trump's shoe factory

The United States has called upon China to release three activists detained for investigating conditions at factories manufacturing shoes under the brand name of U.S. President's daughter Ivanka Trump.

On Monday, Alicia Edwards, a deputy State Department spokeswoman, said that such labor activists can help American companies find abuses in the factories that make their products or parts, reports the New York Times.

"We urge China to release them immediately and otherwise afford them the judicial and fair trial protections to which they are entitled," she said.

According to the Guardian, the three activists were preparing to issue a report accusing factories that make shoes for the daughter of US president Donald Trump of a host of violations including paying below China's legal minimum wage, managers verbally abusing workers and "violations of women's rights".

According to the report, one of the activists, Hua Haifeng, was detained by police on suspicion of "illegal use of monitoring equipment" and two others, Li Zhao and Su Heng, have gone missing and are presumed to be in police custody.

Meanwhile, Chinese officials on Tuesday dismissed the calls to release the activists as at a daily news briefing, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said it was an internal Chinese matter.