Group: Yahoo Helped China Jail Journalist

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http://www.breitbart.com/news/na/D8CF5FL00.html

Group: Yahoo Helped China Jail Journalist
Sep 06 11:00 PM US/Eastern


By ALEXA OLESEN
Associated Press Writer


BEIJING


A French media watchdog said Tuesday that information provided by Internet powerhouse Yahoo Inc. helped Chinese authorities convict and jail a journalist who had written an e-mail about press restrictions.

The harsh criticism from Reporters Without Borders marks the latest instance in which a prominent high-tech company has faced accusations of cooperating with Chinese authorities to gain favor in a country that's expected to become an Internet gold mine.

Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo and two of its biggest rivals, Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp.'s MSN, previously have come under attack for censoring online news sites and Web logs, or blogs, that include content that China's communist government wants to suppress.

Reporters Without Borders ridiculed Yahoo for becoming even cozier with the Chinese government by becoming a police informant in a case that led to the recent conviction of Chinese journalist Shi Tao.

"Does the fact that this corporation operates under Chinese law free it from all ethical considerations?" Reporters Without Borders said in a statement. "How far will it go to please Beijing?"

Pauline Wong, head of marketing for the Hong Kong office, said Wednesday that the company had no comment on the statement.

"We're still looking at it," Wong said.

Reporters Without Borders said court papers showed that Yahoo Holdings (Hong Kong) Ltd. gave Chinese investigators information that helped them trace a personal Yahoo e-mail allegedly containing state secrets to Tao's computer. Yahoo Holdings (Hong Kong) Ltd. is part of Yahoo's global network.

Shi, a former journalist for the financial publication Contemporary Business News, was sentenced in April to 10 years in prison for illegally providing state secrets to foreigners. Reporters Without Borders described Shi as a "good journalist who has paid dearly for trying to get the news out."

His conviction stemmed from an e-mail he sent containing his notes on a government circular that spelled out restrictions on the media.

"This probably would not have been possible without the cooperation of Yahoo," said Lucie Morillon, a Washington, D.C.-based spokeswoman for Reporters Without Borders.

Shi's arrest in November at his home in the northwestern province of Shanxi prompted appeals for his release by activists, including the international writers group PEN.

A number of Chinese journalists have faced similar charges of violating vague security laws as communist leaders struggle to maintain control of information in the burgeoning Internet era.

Yahoo and its major rivals have been expanding their presence in China in hopes of reaching more of the country's population as the Internet becomes more ingrained in their daily lives.

Just last month, Yahoo paid $1 billion for a 40 percent stake in China's biggest online commerce firm, Alibaba.com.

Meanwhile, Google and Microsoft are locked in a bitter legal battle over a former Microsoft engineer who Google hired in July to oversee the opening of a research center in China.

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http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050910/wl_afp/chinainternetmediadissidentyahoo_050910131758

Yahoo's Yang say hands tied in China Internet censorship case Sat Sep 10,10:31 AM ET



HANGZHOU, China (AFP) - Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO - news) chief Jerry Yang said his company was complying with local laws when information on an Internet user was passed to Chinese police in a move leading to the jailing of a mainland journalist.

Yang, speaking at the Alibaba China Internet Summit here, also said he wasn't happy with the 10-year sentence to journalist Shi Tao, jailed for passing on a government censorship order through his Yahoo e-mail account.

"We did not know what they wanted information for, we are not told what they look for, if they give us the proper documentation in a court order we give them things that satisfy local laws," Yang told journalists

"I don't like the outcome of what happened with this thing, we get a lot of these orders, but we have to comply with the law and that's what we need to do."

Shi, 37, was convicted in April for "revealing state secrets," by using his email account to post on the Internet a government order barring Chinese media from marking the 15th anniversary of the brutal June 1989 crackdown on democracy activists in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

Last week, Yahoo's actions were revealed in the court's verdict, copies of which were posted on overseas Chinese websites.

According to the verdict, the California-based company's Hong Kong subsidiary, Yahoo Hong Kong, gave the details to China's state security.

Shi, who worked for the Hunan-based Contemporary Business News, has insisted he is innocent, arguing that the government order was not a state secret.

Yahoo co-founder Yang stressed his company must comply with local regulations, but said he was also concerned with the safety of Internet users in China.

"We are all here in China that represents quite a lot of opportunities, not only on the business side, but also on the social side," Yang said.

"We look at our users' interests, without our users we don't have business."

At the same time, it was essential that Yahoo employees abide by local laws as well, he added.

"I would not put our employees at risk in anyway, shape or form and when it comes to issues such as seeking user information we have a very clear cut set of rules."

"The government of any country has engaged with us through legal documentation or legal procedures, we get a lot of those every day around the world."

Also speaking at the summit was former US president

Bill Clinton who sidestepped talk of China's jailing of Internet political dissidents, but indicated web censorship could have a commercial backlash in the future.

"In China, I think that so far the political system and restraint on political speech in the Internet has not seemed to have any adverse commercial consequences," Clinton said.

"It will be interesting to see whether that is true of the future.

"In America, the Internet is this wild cauldron of dissenting voices, we have now whole different media over the Internet with all the blog sites in America," he said.

Earlier Saturday leading rights groups urged Clinton to encourage Western Internet companies to respect freedom of speech when operating in China.

"Internet companies must be open on where they stand with respect to their human rights obligations," said the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders.

"

President Clinton is a good ambassador to relay this message and has a valuable opportunity this Saturday."

In 2002, Yahoo became one of many firms to voluntarily sign onto the government-mandated "Public Pledge on Self-Discipline for the China Internet Industry".

Other US software and Internet companies, such as Microsoft and Google, have also adapted their services in China in ways that have restricted access to information.