By David Utter
Expert Author
Article Date: 2005-09-08
Assistance rendered by Hong Kong-based Yahoo Holdings led to the imprisonment of Shi Tao for passing a "state secret."
We had to obey the law, Reuters reports on Yahoo's public position regarding its role in supplying Chinese investigators with information that linked an email account to an IP address used by Shi Tao, who has been jailed for 10 years.
"Just like any other global company, Yahoo! must ensure that its local country sites must operate within the laws, regulations and customs of the country in which they are based," Yahoo spokeswoman Mary Osako said in a statement e-mailed to Reuters by the firm's Hong Kong arm.
Yahoo has been vilified globally, as the story broke in a report from Reporters Without Borders. While Yahoo will not confirm if it did assist with the investigation, Reporters Without Borders claims court documents in the Shi case show that it did.
Apparently, Mr. Shi's crime involved sending the contents of an email sent to journalists to recipients outside China. That email was an internal message at his former employer Contemporary Business News in Hunan province. The email discussed the 15th anniversary of the Tianamen Square massacre in 2004.
Yahoo was a 2002 signatory to China's Public Pledge on Self-Discipline for the China Internet Industry, agreement to which generally has been seen as promising to censor content deemed unsafe by Beijing.
