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BBC / Human Rights Watch
One million people are believed to have been detained in camps in Xinjiang, China.
Disney is under fire for shooting its new movie Mulan in parts of China where the government is accused of serious human rights abuses.
The ending credits thank a government security agency in Xinjiang province, where around 1 million people, mostly Uighur Muslims, are believed to be detained.
The film has already been the subject of a boycott after its lead actress backed the crackdown on Hong Kong protesters.
Disney has not commented on the row over locations and credits.
China says its detention camps in Xinjiang are necessary to improve security.
The live action movie, which is one of the biggest releases of the year, is a remake of the 1998 animated story of a girl who takes her father’s place in the military.
But fans in some Asian countries called for a boycott after Chinese-born actress Liu Yifei made remarks in support of the Hong Kong police, which have been accused of violence against pro-democracy protesters in recent months. .
Then on Monday, social media users noticed that in the credits that Disney thanked various government entities in Xinjiang, including the Turpan City Public Security Bureau and the “Publicity Department of the CPC Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Committee.”
The public security bureau in Turpan is tasked with managing China’s “re-education” camps where Uighurs are being held, China expert Adrian Zenz told the BBC.
The “advertising department” appointed by Disney is responsible for producing state propaganda in the region, it adds.
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One million Uighurs are believed to have been forcibly detained in high-security prison camps in recent years.
Leaked documents and testimonies from camp survivors reveal that inmates are locked up, indoctrinated and punished, claims that China has dismissed as “fake news.”
In 2018, a BBC investigation found evidence of security complexes built in the Xinjiang desert.
Zenz described Disney as “an international corporation profiting in the shadow of the concentration camps.”
The Uygar World Congress tweeted “At the new Mulan, Disney is grateful to the Turpan public security office, which has been involved in the internment camps in East Turkestan.”
Activist Shawn Zhang also criticized the company., writing “how many thousands of Uyghurs were put into camps by the Turpan Public Security Bureau when Mulan was filmed there?”
Turpan was the site of the first “re-education camps” where Uighur women who wore veils or men who wore beards were detained, Zenz explained. The public security bureau is also responsible for managing the construction of the camps and hiring the police to staff them, he added.
The earliest evidence of Uighurs’ “reeducation” work in Turpan is from August 2013, Zenz says.
In June, it released a report that uncovered evidence that China was forcing Uighur women to sterilize or use contraceptive devices, a practice China denies.
China says it is fighting the “three forces of evil” of separatism, terrorism and extremism in Xinjiang and says the camps are voluntary schools for anti-extremism training.
In 2017, Mulan’s director, Niki Caro, posted photos of the Xinjiang capital on Instagram. The production team behind the film also told Architectural Digest magazine that they spent months in Xinjiang to investigate filming locations.
Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong also condemned Disney, tweeting that viewers watching Mulan are “potentially complicit in the mass incarceration of Uighur Muslims.”
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