Priority Cases
Shi Tao, 10 years in prison for sending an email
People's Republic of China
In April 2004, the Chinese journalist Shi Tao used his Yahoo! email account to send a message to a U.S.-based pro-democracy website. In his email, he summarized a government order directing media organizations in China to downplay the upcoming 15th anniversary of the 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy activists. Police arrested him in November 2004, charging him with "illegally providing state secrets to foreign entities." Authorities used email account holder information supplied by Yahoo! to convict Shi Tao in April 2005 and sentence him to 10 years in prison.
In 2007, when Yahoo co-founder, Jerry Yang, was brought before the House Foreign Affairs Committee in Washington because of the company's role in turning over customer information to the Chinese State Security Bureau, he expressed great remorse for the company's actions. He even offered an apology to Shi Tao's mother who was in attendance. But soon after, the company only took minor steps to make amends for their actions, and stopped short of taking any decisive measures that would send a clear message to Chinese authorities that censorship would not be tolerated. All the while, Shi Tao still sits in prison for sending an email.
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