Disney Threatens to Boycott Georgia But Partners With China, Which Puts Muslims in Internment Camps
The Walt Disney Company is considering boycotting Georgia over its new abortion law, even as Disney profits from doing business in China, a notorious human rights violator that is putting Muslims in internment camps.
Disney CEO Bob Iger told Reuters on Thursday the company is likely to cease filming in Georgia if the pro-life law takes effect.
“I think many people who work for us will not want to work there, and we will have to heed their wishes in that regard,” Iger said. “Right now we are watching it very carefully.”
“If [the bill] becomes law, I don’t see how it’s practical for us to continue to shoot there,” Iger said.
EXCLUSIVE: Disney CEO says it will be 'difficult' to film in Georgia if abortion law takes effect. More here https://t.co/Xx9gr07vcw pic.twitter.com/NapxdwAm3T
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 30, 2019
Disney apparently has no issue with doing business in China, which has undertaken mass detentions of Uighur Muslims, placing them in internment camps.
Disney opened a $5.5 billion resort in Shanghai, China, in 2016. Iger called Shanghai Disney the company’s “greatest opportunity since buying land in Florida.” Disney partnered with a state-owned media company, Shanghai Shendi Group, for the resort.
“With its growing middle class, China is a particularly important growth market for Disney,” The New York Times reported in November 2018.
Chinese authorities in 2018 “dramatically stepped up repression and systematic abuses against the 13 million Turkic Muslims, including Uyghurs and ethnic Kazakhs, in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region,” Human Rights Watch noted in its annual report on China.
“Authorities have carried out mass arbitrary detention, torture, and mistreatment of some of them in various detention facilities, and increasingly imposed pervasive controls on daily life,” the watchdog group’s report said.
Chinese authorities in March implied it would not cease operating its internment camps until the country has no more Muslims to put in the camps.
The Daily Caller News Foundation reached out to Disney’s press team to inquire whether the company sees any contradiction in potentially boycotting Georgia while continuing to profit from its Chinese partnership.
TheDCNF did not receive a response by press time.
Disney also filmed movies in Middle Eastern countries with stricter abortion laws than the Georgia bill. Disney recently filmed movies in Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, as the Washington Free Beacon first noted.
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