Disney criticized for filming Mulan in China's Xinjiang Province, site of mass human rights abuses

For years, the Chinese government has claimed that these “re-education centers” do not exist despite the fact that internal documents refer to them explicitly as such. Chinese officials claim that these centers are actually vocational schools for criminals, and that they are instead running a “mass de-radicalization program” targeted at Muslim extremists. However, leaked documents reveal that citizens can be detained merely for aesthetic reasons, like wearing a veil or growing a long beard. Mulan’s end credits additionally thank the “publicity department of CPC Xinjiang Uighur Autonomy Region Committee”—the entity of the Chinese Communist Party that produces and manages state propaganda.

As THR notes, director Niki Caro shared a photo on Instagram back in 2017 from a location scout in the capital of Xinjiang. Although reports made mention of Mulan filming in and around the area, and China’s human rights abuses of Uighur Muslims in the region have been public for years, the end credits of Mulan made the connection more explicit and troubling—particularly because Disney cooperated with entities that manufacture and spread dangerous propaganda used to justify said abuses.

Just another extremely upsetting development from a massive corporation that prides itself on “family values.”

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