Date: Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Yahoo boss branded “moral pygmy” in Chinese dissident hearing

Jerry Yang, boss of Yahoo, has been forced to settle with families of two imprisoned Chinese journalists after being labelled a “moral pygmy” in congress. Tom Lantos, a Democrat who chairs the House Foreign Affairs committee, criticised the Internet giant during a hearing at Capitol Hill last week.

Yahoo stood accused of breaching the basic human rights of two journalists, who are currently serving 10-year jail sentences. Wang Xiaoning and Shi Tao were both jailed after Yahoo passed email and ISP addresses on to the Chinese government. Wang, arrested in 2002, was accused of “incitement to subvert state power” after sending emails and writing political articles. Meanwhile, Shi was arrested in 2004 for violating the state secrets act.

In April, a friend of the pair filed a lawsuit against Yahoo on their behalf. Yahoo initially defended their actions by claiming they were obliged to provide information to the Chinese government as a condition of the company operating there.

During the hearing, it was evidence from the journalist’s families that proved to be the most hard-hitting. Wang’s wife Yu Ling accused Yahoo of providing information that allowed her husband and others to be punished “for expressing their free speech rights and for using the Internet to communicate about democracy and human rights matters.” Yang was humbled by this evidence and admitted so in a statement made after the hearing. He said: “After meeting with the families, it was clear to me what we had to do to make this right for them.”

Following the hearing, Mr Lantos believed the verdict was a successful one. He said: “It took a tongue-lashing from congress before these high-tech titans did the right thing and coughed up some concrete assistance for the family of a journalist whom Yahoo had helped to send to jail.”

Sources:

Guardian

Times

BBC