Yahoo helped Chinese to prosecute journalist

By Joseph Kahn The New York Times

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2005

BEIJING The Internet giant Yahoo provided information that helped Chinese state security officials convict a Chinese journalist for leaking state secrets to a foreign Web site, court documents show.

The journalist, Shi Tao, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in June for sending an anonymous posting to a New York-based, Chinese-language Web site that authorities said contained state secrets. His posting summarized a communication from Communist Party authorities to media outlets around the country.

Shi's case has become a prominent symbol of the recent tightening of media controls in the one-party state, where authorities often punish outspoken journalists for leaking information deemed secret.

Yahoo provided records showing that Shi used a computer at his workplace, Contemporary Business News, in Changsha, late in the evening of April 20, 2004, to access his Yahoo e-mail account. Authorities say the offending e-mail was sent to the New York Web site from that e-mail account around that time, according to people involved in Shi's defense.

Yahoo's role in the prosecution of Shi was revealed in July by Boxun, a Web site run by overseas Chinese, and was repeated on Tuesday by Reporters Without Borders, a media watchdog group. Yahoo declined to comment on the matter Wednesday.

Yahoo, Microsoft, Google, Cisco and other major Internet service and equipment providers have come under scrutiny for helping China to monitor and censor content available to China's 100 million Internet users.