By Ben Westcott and Selina Wang, CNN Business

Updated 0357 GMT (1157 HKT) September 9, 2020

Hong Kong (CNN Business)Disney has publicly thanked a Chinese government agency accused of human rights abuses in Xinjiang for its help in making “Mulan” — a revelation that has provoked a storm of criticism online.Disney (DIS) acknowledges several Chinese government bodies in the credits for the live-action remake of the 1998 animated picture of the same name, but a few in particular have raised red flags: The Xinjiang government’s publicity department and the Public Security and Tourism bureaus for Turpan, a city of about 633,400 people just outside Xinjiang’s capital Urumqi.Disney did not respond to a request for comment from CNN Business to its media inquiry line, and to US press officers about the film and the credits. It’s not clear how much of “Mulan” may have been shot in Xinjiang, though people who worked on the movie have said on social media and in interviews that they scouted and filmed locations there.The US State Department estimates that since 2015 as many as two million of the Muslim-majority Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities have been imprisoned in enormous re-education camps in Xinjiang.The Turpan Public Security Bureau has been listed by the US government as an organization involved in “human rights violations and abuses” in the region.Beijing has long defended the crackdown in Xinjiang as necessary to tackle extremism and terrorism, and said it is in line with Chinese law and international practice, calling accusations of mass detentions a “groundless lie” and “sensational rumor.” A spokesperson for the country’s foreign ministry on Tuesday reiterated its defense of what it calls its Xinjiang “vocational skills education and training centers.” CNN Business has reached out to the Xinjiang government and Turpan’s tourism bureau, but Turpan’s Public Security bureau could not be reached for comment.