|
Dow Jones Newswires November 7, 2007
Families Of Jailed Chinese Dissidents Speak Out Against Yahoo By COREY BOLES
WASHINGTON — The families of two Chinese dissidents said Wednesday they hoped a congressional hearing into Yahoo's role in the men's imprisonment will help spur action for their release. Gao Qinsheng, the mother of jailed journalist Shi Tao, and Yu Lin, the wife of imprisoned cyber-dissident Wang Xiaoning, spoke passionately about Yahoo's conduct.
Shi Tao was jailed after Yahoo China, then a unit of the company, handed information about him to Chinese authorities in 2004.
Wang Xiaoning was arrested in 2002 for using a Yahoo account to advocate open elections in China, according to a House Foreign Affairs Committee spokeswoman.
The company is alleged by lawmakers and human-rights groups to have cooperated with Beijing over his arrest as well.
Both women said they were pleased U.S. lawmakers grilled Yahoo executives about the cases during Tuesday's hearing.
"I am very happy that I saw and I heard the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee and other congressmen criticize and condemn Yahoo for having lied to the Congress," said Gao.
She was referring to Tuesday's hearing at which members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, including the panel's chairman, Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Cal., strongly criticized Yahoo Chief Executive Jerry Yang and General Counsel Michael Callahan over the incident.
Yang and Callahan apologized for not fully informing the committee about the case but denied they lied to the panel.
Lawmakers were angry at Yahoo for first handing over information about the dissidents to the Beijing authorities. The lawmakers also charged Yahoo with misinforming Congress about what the company knew about the cases when Callahan testified before a subcommittee hearing in February 2006.
And they criticized Yahoo officials for not returning to Congress to inform it of the error once it was discovered.
During testimony Tuesday, both Yahoo executives denied that Callahan had lied to Congress. He initially testified in February 2006 that the company didn't know about the specifics of the Chinese government's request in the Shi investigation.
It later emerged Chinese officials had sent a 2004 Chinese order about the dissident's email accounts that referred to "state secrets" violations. That's widely known in the country to mean a political investigation.
The women, along with representatives of a number of human rights groups and Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., were speaking at a meeting of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, a coalition of lawmakers concerned about human rights issues.
After Tuesday's hearing, Yang and Callahan met privately with Gao and Yu in a room in the offices of the House Committee. According to Gao, the two apologized profusely for the company's role in the jailing of Shi and Wang, and pledged to put pressure on the Chinese government to release them.
They also discussed a court case in which the women are suing the company, accusing it of breaking several laws, including one which prohibits U.S. companies from assisting in the commission of torture and other human rights abuses in other countries.
In his testimony to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Callahan expressed a willingness to consider settling the case with the women, and Yu said he reiterated that openness during the private meeting afterward. No details of what any settlement would look like was discussed, the women said. A Yahoo spokeswoman declined to comment on the meeting.
According to Morton Sklar, the lawyer representing the women who was at Wednesday's hearing, the judge in the case last week ordered the discovery phase to begin. Sklar said the plaintiffs hadn't made public a monetary figure they were seeking.
Harry Wu, an ex-political prisoner in China, and now executive director of the human rights group The Laogai Research Foundation, said it was imperative that Yahoo conduct a thorough investigation to find out how many people may have been jailed due to its cooperation with the Chinese authorities.
Laogai is named after the forced Chinese labor camps where Wu was incarcerated for nearly 20 years. According to The Dui Hua Foundation, the human rights group, there are four individuals that have been jailed because of Yahoo's actions.
In addition to Shi and Wang, Jian Lijun was jailed for four years in November 2002, and Li Zhi was sentenced to 11 years in December 2003, both for subversion. Jian has since been released, but Li remains in jail.
Jian was using a Yahoo email account and chat room to organize a protest against the Chinese government. Li had used a Yahoo email account to contact a pro-democracy group outside of China, the Dui Hua Foundation said.
Joshua D. Rosenzweig, a research manager at San Francisco-based Dui Hua, who also spoke at Wednesday's hearing, said that at both trials, evidence was presented of Yahoo's cooperation with authorities.
The Yahoo spokeswoman said she had no comment on the allegations involving the two other men. She declined to comment to questions about whether Yahoo would conduct an investigation into whether other individuals had been prosecuted in China based on its assistance.
Yahoo didn't respond to questions about whether the company would attempt to pressure Beijing over the jailed men.
For the second day in a row, Yahoo's shares suffered. After dropping by 5% on Tuesday, when markets were generally trading positively, the company's shares finished Wednesday's session down $2.30 or 7.7%, to $27.63 while the Nasdaq was down about 2.7%.
(c) 2007 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. |