Congress to investigate Yahoo
p2pnet news | freedom:- Yahoo users in China were jailed after the company co-operated with Chinese Net police, the cyber dissident’s relatives and friends have been claiming for well over a year.
Among them are Shi Tao and Wang Xiaoning, both imprisoned for10 years.
Yet Yahoo continues to trade as though absolutely nothing has happened, repeatedly issuing protestations of innocence.
However, “Congressional investigators plan to look into whether Yahoo officials misrepresented the Internet company’s role in the arrest of a Chinese journalist sentenced to a decade in jail,” says Associated Press, going on:
House Foreign Affairs Chairman Tom Lantos ordered the investigation after a human rights group released a document that it said raised questions about what Yahoo knew when it shared information with authorities about Shi Tao. Beijing officials had sought Shi for sending an e-mail about Chinese media restrictions.
“For a firm engaged in the information industry, Yahoo sure has a lot of secrecy to answer for,” said Lantos, D-Calif. “We expect to learn the truth and to hold the company to account.”
The Dui Hua Foundation says emails from Wang Xiaoning supplied to police by Yahoo, “were used as evidence that he disseminated writings opposed to the Chinese government and its policies”.
It states:
Documents in another of four known cases involving Yahoo! and the imprisonment of Chinese dissidents show conclusively that information provided by the company’s Beijing office was being used as part of Chinese police investigations into political crimes.
In this case, emails from Wang Xiaoning supplied to police by Yahoo! were used as evidence that he disseminated writings opposed to the Chinese government and its policies. A Beijing court subsequently found Wang guilty of “inciting subversion” and sentenced him to 10 years’ imprisonment. (The documents, which The Dui Hua Foundation has examined and believes to be authentic, are appended along with English translations.)
On April 23, 2002, agents of the Beijing State Security Bureau approached Yahoo!’s Beijing office with a notice requesting information about a Yahoo! Groups account as well as registration and login information for two Yahoo! email addresses. In a subsequent request for information on August 14, 2002, police sought registration information, login information, and email messages for another Yahoo! email account, all of which appear to have been provided on that same day by Yahoo!’s Beijing office. Both of the police notices clearly state “suspected inciting subversion” as the cause of the investigation.
On September 1, 2002, Wang Xiaoning was taken into custody by police in Beijing on suspicion of “inciting subversion.” He was charged with using an online newsletter to attack the government and advocate multi-party elections, and he was alleged to have used his Yahoo! accounts to disseminate the political writings of his “Chinese Third Way Party” to hundreds of recipients. Sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment by the Beijing Number One Intermediate People’s Court on September 12, 2003, Wang is due for release from Beijing Number Two Prison on August 31, 2012.
These documents follow Dui Hua’s July 25 report on a police document in the case of Shi Tao revealing that Yahoo!’s representative office in Beijing had information that investigators were pursuing a case involving a leak of state secrets. User account information provided to police in response to that document was later used to convict Shi on state secrets charges and sentence him to ten years’ imprisonment. Previously released court documents have also shown that Yahoo! user account information was provided by the company in the course of police investigations into the subversion cases of Jiang Lijun (sentenced to four years’ imprisonment in November 2003) and Li Zhi (sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment in December 2003).
Lantos said that “covering up such a despicable practice when Congress seeks an explanation is a serious offensem” says AP, continuing:
“Yahoo general counsel Michael Callahan told lawmakers at a hearing last year that his company had no information about the nature of the investigation when it provided details about Shi to Chinese officials, Lantos said.”
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’,” according to the story.
On the document released by Dui Hua, “There are many and various descriptions of what state secrets could be, including legitimate investigations into things like terrorism,” it has Cullinan stating.
Dui Hua means “dialogue” in Mandarin Chinese. The foundation says it was was established in April 1999 as a non-profit organization, “dedicated to advancing the protection of universally recognized human rights in China and in the United States”.
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Also See:
imprisoned for10 years – Yahoo in new China dissident lawsuit, May 31, 2007
Associated Press – Congress to investigate Yahoo’s role in Chinese rights case, August 8, 2007
Dui Hua Foundation – More Evidence Emerges on Yahoo!’s Role in Chinese Internet Cases, July 30, 2007
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