Tony Perkins \u00b7 Mar. 3, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n
https:\/\/patriotpost.us\/opinion\/68957-nike-makes-uyghur-targeting-a-team-sport-2020-03-03?fbclid=IwAR0w4zW5BFwSWz5L131dzRAuXS86kkNNOHqM5CWcbg303-ofNPYMP9p1ac8<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n For the hundreds of Uyghur girls walking through the factory\u2019s gates, it may not be a Xinjiang camp \u2014 but it\u2019s a prison just the same. The barbed wire, the cameras, the heavy police presence, they\u2019re all a sickening reminder that the nightmare they\u2019ve been living isn\u2019t over. It\u2019s just changed. Now, hunched over tables, stitching Nike\u2019s logo on endless pairs of shoes, they wonder which is worse: \u201creeducation\u201d lessons or forced labor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They come in groups of 50, usually by train from the network of camps in the west. Chinese officials tell them they\u2019ve \u201cgraduated\u201d from their detention and been given jobs. But what they aren\u2019t given, the Washington Post warns, is a choice. Shipped to factories around the country, they\u2019re sentenced to work as slaves for some of America\u2019s most recognizable brands. \u201cEveryone knows they didn\u2019t come here of their own free will,\u201d one of the vendors tells the Post\u2019s Anna Fifield in Laixi. \u201cThey were brought here. The Uyghurs had to come because they didn\u2019t have an option. The government sent them here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Conscious of the military-style guards, Anna raised a camera to her face and snapped a shot of the factory\u2019s high walls with razor-sharp fencing. \u201cThere is a special police station equipped with facial-recognition cameras and other high-tech surveillance,\u201d she explains, \u201cthat workers must pass through when they enter and exit the facility.\u201d The locals she talked to believe that it\u2019s run by the tightest of security standards. And why not? The secret they\u2019re keeping \u2014 that persecuted religious minorities are being \u201cbought and sold\u201d by local governments to work for Nike, Apple, and others \u2014 would implicate American companies in one of the worst human rights atrocities in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As she interviews local townspeople, a horrifying picture of what looks like a modern slave trade starts to emerge. And a lucrative one at that. The Chinese, Fifield discovers, get \u201ca sum of money for each Uyghur head.\u201d \u201cOfficials and private brokers receive money for every Uyghur person they manage to transfer,\u201d Vicky Lu, one of the leading experts on the story, confirms. \u201cThe recipient companies receive a cash inducement for every Uyghur they take.\u201d Worse, Lu’s report warns, \u201cAt these factories, they continue to undergo\u2026 [forced] indoctrination programs.”\u2028\u2028<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thousands of miles away in America, companies like Nike are scrambling to explain away their involvement in China\u2019s forced labor program. Spokeswoman Sandra Carreon-John tried to wash the brand\u2019s hands of any wrongdoing by insisting that suppliers are “strictly prohibited from using any type of prison, forced, bonded, or indentured labor. But the reality is, Nike\u2019s known about the situation since at least last year, when the Wall Street Journal started sounding the alarm that U.S. businesses were being implicated in the Uyghur crackdown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While companies like Abercrombie raced to cut ties with the suppliers in question, Nike, Gap, Apple, Samsung, and others stood pat, hoping the story would die down. Now that it hasn\u2019t, Nike\u2019s Carreon-John is crossing her fingers people will believe the lie that the company “respect[s] human rights in our extended value chain, and we always strive to conduct business ethically and responsibly. We are committed to upholding international labor standards globally.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course, the rub for American customers is that Nike has spent the last several years parading around the U.S. as some sort of social justice warrior. We were supposed to believe that they cared about injustice and inequality. And yet all this time, the retail giant that was crusading against police brutality and oppression was quietly fueling it on an international scale. While they droned on about supporting athletes\u2019 \u201cright to freedom of expression,\u201d they were busy crushing that same freedom abroad \u2014 and trading in human capital while they were at it. All to make a buck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here at home, Nike almost seems to be taking a page from the playbook of their foreign partners, the Chinese Communist Party. The company launched an all-out war against religious liberty in places like Tennessee, where the brand argued that letting adoption groups live by their beliefs was somehow bad for business. If it were up to the shoe giant, they\u2019d kick men and women of faith right out of the public square. When it comes right down to it, Nike has a lot more in common with China\u2019s dictatorial regime than anyone cared to admit. Let that serve as a warning, Vice President Mike Pence has said. \u201cA progressive corporate culture that ignores the abuse of human rights is not progressive, it is repressive.\u201d And a progressive corporate culture that not only ignores it \u2014 but engages in it \u2014 is far, far worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Originally published here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nMedia Injects Faith Debate into Coronavirus<\/h2>\n\n\n\n