The hypocrisy of Indiana's corporate critics

Apple CEO Tim Cook recently joined a slate of major American companies denouncing Indiana’s religious freedom law, conflating the legislation with enshrined discrimination against homosexuals.

“There’s something dangerous happening in states across the country …” Cook declared in an op-ed for The Washington Post.

But Cook and leaders of other corporations with overseas interests failed to mention a different reality: There’s something dangerous happening in countries around the world.

Even as Cook denounces Indiana based on a misinterpretation of its new law, he courts the United Arab Emirates (UAE)—a federation where homosexuality is outlawed, and can be punishable by death.

Cook traveled to UAE last year and met with government leaders, including Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed. The pair discussed technology in the burgeoning Middle Eastern economy, but it’s unclear whether Cook brought up the nation’s problematic human rights record.

The U.S. State Department in a 2013 report on the UAE cited “citizens’ inability to change their government; limitations on citizens’ civil liberties (including the freedoms of speech, press, assembly, association, and internet use); and arbitrary arrests, incommunicado detentions, and lengthy pretrial detentions.”

It also noted: “Legal and societal discrimination against persons with HIV/AIDS and based on sexual orientation and gender identity remained problems.”

Apple officials told Business Insider last year the UAE online store is one of its fastest growing markets in the world, and the company plans to open a physical outlet in the region. Some tech media sites reported Apple may build the outlet in Dubai’s Mall of the Emirates, and that it could be the company’s biggest store in the world.

Meanwhile, Apple also continues to grow a massive market in China—a communist nation with deep-rooted human rights abuses, particularly against religious minorities.

Since 1999, the U.S. State Department has included China on its list of Countries of Particular Concern for religious freedom abuses. In its annual report last year, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom reported on China’s “systematic, egregious, and ongoing abuses” of Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, Falun Gong, and others, saying some face “long jail terms, forced renunciations of faith, and torture in detention.”

It added: “The government has not sufficiently answered accusations of psychiatric experimentation and organ harvesting.”

In Henan province—where Apple opened a new store in January—Christian pastor Zhang Shaojie is serving a 12-year jail sentence for church-related activities. Late last year, the local government announced it would auction the pastor’s home, leaving his family (including his disabled wife and elderly father) homeless.

But China remains Apple’s third largest market, and the company employs thousands of Chinese workers to build products for shipment around the world. The Wall Street Journal reported in January that Apple revenue for Greater China (mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan) grew by 70 percent in the last quarter.

Apple’s first quarter revenue in Greater China: $16 billion.

Apple isn’t the only Indiana protester cashing in on troubled lands. Pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly—the largest publicly traded company in Indiana—has opposed the state’s religious freedom law, but it also does big business in China.

Last week, Eli Lilly announced a $500 million partnership with the Chinese firm Innovent Biologic. The deal is one of the largest-ever collaborations between a Chinese and a foreign pharmaceutical company.

Another Indiana opponent, the financial company Accenture, maintains offices in UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, China, and other countries with troubling human rights records. The National Basketball Association—which denounced Indiana’s law—plans to play games in China this fall.

Perhaps the leaders of these American companies believe they have less say in the policies of the communist or dictatorial nations where they do business. But it’s notable those policies haven’t stopped corporations from raking in massive profits from lands with truly oppressive governments.

Indeed, the growing list of businesses opposing Indiana’s law are indignant over abuses that haven’t yet happened and mostly likely wouldn’t happen under a law that mirrors federal legislation and similar laws in 19 states. Indiana Gov. Mike Pence defended the law in a press conference on Tuesday but said he would propose reforms to ensure it doesn’t allow businesses to discriminate.

Meanwhile, pastors like Zhang Shaojie sit in real jails in China, and others face long prison sentences for speaking out for some of the most vulnerable people in their country—while the world and profitable companies remain mostly silent.

Two decades ago, former Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., held up golf socks from China during a speech on the House floor. Wolf picked up the socks during a visit to Beijing Prison Number One, where he learned the inmates, including some Tiananmen Square activists, produced the clothing for export to America.

Wolf was indignant over China’s record of forced abortions and persecution of Christians and other religious minorities, and he urged the U.S. to revoke China’s Most Favored Nation trading status.

Many high profile Republicans and Democrats disagreed, and the plan failed, but Wolf exhibited what ire over real abuses looks like, even when billions of dollars are at stake.