INTERNET giant Yahoo! has been accused of helping Chinese authorities jail a journalist by providing computer information.
Reporters sans Frontiéres say Yahoo! provided the IP address details of journalist Shi Tao to state police who arrested him and sentenced him to 10 years in prison.
“Yahoo! obviously complied with requests from the Chinese authorities to furnish information regarding an IP address that linked Shi Tao to materials posted online,” said Reporters sans Frontiéres.
“And the company will yet again simply state that they just conform to the laws of the countries in which they operate.
“But does the fact that this corporation operates under Chinese law free it from all ethical considerations? How far will it go to please Beijing?”
Shi Tao was sentenced in April to 10 years in prison for sending, via e-mail, the text of an internal Communist Party message to foreign websites.
The message warned journalists about the dangers of social unrest as a result of the return of dissidents on the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
Comments