What Role did Yahoo! Play in the Jailing of a Chinese Journalist?

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Now a US Congressional committee wants to investigate whether Yahoo! Inc. lied in their testimony, over its role in the case that sent Shi Tao to jail for ten years.

In April 2004, 37 year old Shi Tao was an editorial department head at the Contemporary Business News in Hunan Province, China. He was present during an internal meeting of the agency's editorial board when the Government's Number 11 Document "A notice concerning the work for maintaining stability". The document warned news media that with the coming 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Protests of 1989 on June 4th, 'dissidents' may come back to mainland China. It asked them to avoid reporting on anything about the 'June 4th event', Falun Gong or stories about people calling for politico-social change.

He took notes and forwarded the main content of the document to the Asia Democracy Foundation. When Chinese government found out they demanded information on the sender from Yahoo's Hong Kong office. On November 24th, Chinese police detained Shi Tao and confiscated Shi's computer and documents, allegedly without showing proper warrant or documentation and by December 14th he was formally arrested.

On March 11th 2005 the Hunan province People's Middle Court held its first hearing, in secret and fifteen days later he was sentenced to jail for ten years, with the loss of his political rights for two years.

Internet censorship in China and the role of Western technology companies has been debated already. Regarding the Shi Tao case, Reporters Without Borders said in a statement "We already knew that Yahoo! collaborates enthusiastically with the Chinese regime in questions of censorship, and now we know it is a Chinese police informant as well."

This week the House of Representatives' Foreign Affairs Committee announced on their website that chairman Tom Lantos will be investigating Yahoo's role in the matter.

“It is bad enough that a wealthy American company would willingly supply Chinese police the means to hunt a man down for shedding light on repression in China,” said Lantos, who also co-chairs the Congressional Human Rights Caucus. “Covering up such a despicable practice when Congress seeks an explanation is a serious offense. For a firm engaged in the information industry, Yahoo! sure has a lot of secrecy to answer for. We expect to learn the truth, and to hold the company to account.”

Yahoo spokesman Jim Cullinan expressed disappointment that Lantos "is rushing to judgment on this issue, because the facts will support Yahoo‘s testimony to Congress." The company has denied the involvement of its Hong Kong subsidiary, saying that it had to comply with local laws and hand over the email evidence and were not told anything about the nature of the investigation.

However, according to an article on Newsone, the Dui Hua Foundation has released a document that it says shows the Beijing State Security Bureau had written Yahoo saying it wanted e-mail content about Shi for an investigation into suspected "illegal provision of state secrets to foreign entities."

Shi’s family has filed a lawsuit in California against Yahoo!, joining with the family of Wang Xiaoning, who was also convicted, and put in prison in 2003 based on information that the Internet company provided to Chinese authorities.