Reporters Without Borders is reporting that Yahoo has been turning over information (email addresses, attachments) to the Chinese government, leading to the arrest and imprisonment of political dissidents.
“[Yahoo] says it simply responds to requests from the authorities for data without ever knowing what it will be used for. But this argument no longer holds water. Yahoo certainly knew it was helping to arrest political dissidents and journalists, not just ordinary criminals. The company must answer for what it is doing at the US congressional hearing set for February 15.???
The foreign-based news website Boxun.com posted on February 5 the plea of cyberdissident Li’s lawyer, Zhang Sizhi, at an appeal court hearing in February 2004. Zhang said his client, who used the e-mail address libertywg@yahoo.com.cn and user-name lizhi34100, had been sentenced on the basis of data handed over by Yahoo ! Hong Kong in a report dated August 1, 2003.
Li, a 35-year-old ex-civil servant from Dazhou (South-West), had been sentenced on December 10, 2003 to eight years in prison for “inciting subversion.??? He had been arrested the previous August after he criticized in online discussion groups and articles the corruption of local officials.
Local sources said Yahoo ! Hong Kong’s cooperation with the police was also mentioned in the court’s verdict on Li.
I heard this on the BBC World News Hour. No chance this story will hit the US media in a visible way, although of course it should.
This is a story about the free press and free expression. It’s a story about privacy. It’s also a story about globalization. If Yahoo had even a rudimentary commitment to international human rights it could locate its servers in the U.S. I’m sure it’s cheaper and easier to house them in China, where they are subject to local laws that require this data to be turned over.
We should all be outraged. (Yet I already hear the yawns.)
