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Beijing Cuts Live Feed of Democratic Debate as Candidates Condemn Human Rights Abuses

Live coverage went down when Mayor Pete Buttigieg was asked if the U.S. should boycott the 2022 Beijing Olympics.

The live feed of Thursday night’s Democratic presidential debate went dark in China when the candidates started discussing human-rights abuses in the country’s Xinjiang region, according to CNN. PBS moderator Judy Woodruff asked South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg if the U.S. should boycott the 2022 Beijing Olympics over the alleged mass detention of Uighur Muslims, and the feed was almost immediately cut. It remained cut off for about nine minutes, according to CNN, while the candidates thrashed out a number of issues related to China, including the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. The U.S. State Department estimates that as many as two million Muslim-majority Uighurs may have been detained in Xinjiang. Former detainees have claimed they had to deal with harsh conditions and abuse as they underwent “political re-education” inside the camps.