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.
China's vaguely-worded legal definition of what constitutes a "state secret" gives authorities broad discretion to detain people who peacefully exercise their right to free expression. In a similar case, authorities arrested government worker Li Zhi in August 2003 for allegedly using email accounts through Yahoo! and another company to make contact with a banned political party.
