By Charlie McCarthy | Friday, 12 February 2021 09:58 PM NEWSMAX
The Walt Disney Co. has refused to comment on a recent report that China has overseen the systematic rape of ethnic minority women in a western region of the country.
BBC News reported earlier this month that women in China's concentration camps for natives of the Xinjiang region had been repeatedly raped, sexually abused and tortured.
Uyghurs women were removed from the cells "every night" and raped by one or more masked Chinese men, one witness told BBC News. About 12 million Uyghurs, mostly Muslim, live in the Xinjiang region.
The Chinese retaliated Thursday by suspending BBC News from the nation's airwaves, claiming the network had harmed China's national interests and ethnic unity, per Breitbart.
A Disney spokesperson did not respond to a Breitbart News email seeking the company's comment about the BBC News report. A follow-up phone inquiry also went unanswered.
Disney's silence on the news from China was in stark contrast to the company's vocal political stances in the U.S., most notably against former President Donald Trump, the state of Georgia over its fetal heartbeat legislation, and Republican congressional members for objecting to the Electoral College voting results.
Disney's close business relationship with China's Communist Party is the strongest in Hollywood, Breitbart indicated. Chairman Bob Iger reportedly has expressed interest in becoming ambassador to China.
Iger forbade Disney's ESPN journalists from discussing the pro-democracy movement in Hong King in 2019.
Disney's Lucasfilm fired "The Mandalorian" actress Gina Carano this week after she compared the treatment of conservatives under President Joe Biden's administration to Nazi Germany.
Disney released a statement calling Carano's social media post "abhorrent." However, the studio didn't take similar action against Carano's co-star Pedro Pascal, who compared the Trump administration's policy toward illegal immigrants to the Holocaust.
At the height of last year's Black Lives Matter protests and riots, Disney posted a social media message and a YouTube video expressing solidarity with the movement. "We stand against racism. We stand for inclusion," the company said.
Disney opened its Shanghai theme park in 2016 and has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the location.
The COVID-19 pandemic helped China last year surpass the U.S. for the first time to become the world's largest movie market.
The Asian market represents about 10 percent of Disney's global revenue, per Breitbart.
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