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Background Information

Shi Tao, a Chinese poet and journalist, is serving a ten-year prison sentence in China for sending an email to the USA. According to a letter Amnesty International received from Yahoo (YHOO), Yahoo China provided account-holder information, in compliance with applicable Chinese law, that led to Shi Tao's sentencing.

Mr. Shi was accused of "illegally providing state secrets to foreign entities" after sending an email summarizing an internal Communist Party directive to a source in the US. The directive had warned Chinese journalists of possible social unrest during the anniversary of the June 4 Movement (in memory of the Tiananmen crackdown), and directed them not to fuel it via media reports. In addition to publicizing this government directive, Shi Tao had also written essays and articles highlighting issues around the pro-democracy movement, including an April 2004 essay criticizing the detention of Ding Zilin, founder of the Tiananmen Mothers organization which seeks information about what happened to victims of the 1989 crackdown.

Imprisoned for peacefully exercising his right to freedom of expression, a right entrenched in international law and the Chinese Constitution, Shi Tao is considered a Prisoner of Conscience.

Companies must respect human rights, wherever they operate, and Yahoo should urgently give adequate consideration to the human rights implications of its investments. In a letter mailed last November, Amnesty International raised our concerns with Yahoo about internet censorship in China generally and the case of Shi Tao in particular. We received a response from them which reads, in part:

"The choice in China or other countries is not whether to comply with law enforcement demands for information. Rather, the choice is whether or not to remain in a country. We balance the requirement to comply with laws that are not necessarily consistent with our own values against our strong belief that active involvement in China contributes to the continued modernization of the country as well as a benefit to Chinese citizens through the advancement of communications, commerce and access to information."
In fact, Yahoo and other IT companies operating in China have far more than the two choices offered above, several of which were laid out explicitly in our letter to them, and in subsequent testimony before the Human Rights Caucus of the US Congress on February 1, 2006. So far we have no evidence to suggest that Yahoo has made the most basic attempts to ensure that they were operating according to international standards.

At a further Congressional hearing held on February 15, 2006, Yahoo presented formal testimony regarding Shi Tao specifically and internet censorship generally, and responded to many questions from Representatives of Congress about their role in China. Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT) and Cisco Systems (CSCO) also presented testimony. Overall, the Congress was not satisfied with the current state of play regarding IT and human rights in China, leading to a spirited debate about what could be done. The full hearing can be downloaded online.

Despite being faced with the tragic reality of the company's role in Shi Tao's arrest and detention, and possibly similar past detentions of other internet dissidents, in their recent testimony Yahoo essentially denied any responsibility for investigating how email user information was being utilized by the Chinese government. The company has only taken minimal steps to demonstrate a serious commitment to addressing the root causes of these issues, and still has not explicitly called for Shi Tao's release or established a comprehensive human rights policy.

Furthermore, it remains to be seen to what degree Yahoo is benefiting Chinese citizens, since all of their services in China comply with the same standards adhered to by their Chinese competitors. What we do know for a fact, is that Yahoo's operation in China have contributed to at least one extremely severe case of human rights abuse. The Chinese Government is keeping pace with technology, finding new ways to control access to information at every turn. By complying with this censorship, companies like Yahoo are sending a clear message to Chinese citizens that they endorse such practices. Yahoo's letter does not respond to all of the concerns raised by Amnesty, nor do they address the additional "choices" that Yahoo does indeed have in China, as detailed in our letter.

However there have been some small steps recently which indicate that Yahoo is responding to pressure. In February 2006, in advance of the US Congressional hearing mentioned above, Yahoo released a statement expressing that they are "deeply concerned by efforts of governments to restrict and control open access to information and communication." Furthermore, they have committed to "Collective Action," as Amnesty and others demanded in Congressional testimony, agreeing to "work with industry, government, academia and NGO's to explore policies to guide industry practices in countries where content is treated more restrictively than in the United States and to promote the principles of freedom of speech and expression."

While Amnesty welcomes such a process, we want to ensure that it is open and transparent, and leads not only to a set of principles, but explicit guidelines for implementation and evaluation. We agree with Yahoo that "government-to-government dialogue is vital to achieve progress on these complex political issues" and that the US government has an important role to play. As such, we used our testimony to the Congress in part to call for legislation regulating US Internet technology companies operating overseas, and other companies publicly traded on US stock exchanges (which would include Baidu (BIDU), the primary Chinese competitor), requiring them to report on their participation in government-ordered filtering/censorship wherever they operate and prohibiting them from complying with violations of freedom of expression and information by repressive regimes.

Lastly, Yahoo has also agreed to "actively engage in ongoing policy dialogue with governments with respect to the nature of the Internet and the free flow of information." We are pleased that Yahoo has stopped diminishing their important role in relationship to foreign governments, and hope that their first step will be to call for the immediate release of Shi Tao and other internet dissidents, both those imprisoned with the aid of Yahoo as well as others.

One important outcome of the hearing is a proposed bill called the Global Online Freedom Act of 2006, to be introduced soon by New Jersey Representative Chris Smith. The bill is designed to respond to and prevent censorship and abuse of freedom of expression on the Internet by placing restrictions on US Internet content hosting companies operating in countries that censor, prosecute and/or persecute individuals based on the exercise of such freedoms. Amnesty International is following the bill carefully and may call on you to take action on this or other legislation in the near future.

In the meantime, while it is encouraging that Yahoo has undertaken some small steps, there is still much to be done. You can join us in sending a message to Yahoo that they must take more steps to ensure they are not aiding human rights abuses in China.

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