NPR: Chinese Journalist Joins Lawsuit Against Yahoo!

Chinese Journalist Joins Lawsuit Against Yahoo!

While the Internet operates as a forum for free speech in many places, it can earn journalists or activists in China a quick trip to jail -- especially after big U.S. Internet companies provide information about what they're doing.

A Chinese journalist and poet who is serving a 10-year sentence in prison has joined a lawsuit against the Internet company Yahoo! that was originally filed in April by Human Rights USA. Shi Tao was arrested for sending e-mail to a pro-democracy group in the United States.

Writing on Boing Boing, Xeni Jardin (a regular contributor to NPR's Day to Day) quotes Colleen M. Costello of the human rights group, who says Shi Tao's prison sentence is directly related to information that Yahoo! gave the Chinese government.

The 2004 Chinese court verdict that sentenced Shi Tao to jail specifically cited Yahoo! as having provided Chinese authorities with information identifying Shi Tao as the owner of the e-mail account and the source of the communications. Yahoo! acknowledges that it provided Chinese officials with identifying information leading to Shi Tao's arbitrary arrest and long-term imprisonment.

Yahoo! and other tech companies have defended what many see as their compliance with repressive governments, saying they are required to follow local laws where they operate. Award-winning digital cartoonist Mark Fiore has created this "iRepress" cartoon to challenge those claims.

The Yahoo! case will be discussed next week at a conference on human rights and Internet repression hosted by Amnesty International UK, which has strongly criticized the actions of companies like Yahoo!, Google and Microsoft in China.

1:31 PM ET | 05-30-2007 | permalink

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