Yahoo says it obeyed Chinese law by turning in e-mail

Yahoo Inc. was only following Chinese law when it provided evidence that helped land a local journalist a 10-year jail sentence, the company said Thursday.

The response came a day after press advocacy group Reporters Without Borders alleged that the evidence, e-mail from journalist Shi Tao's private Yahoo account, was used as material evidence in a trial in which he was convicted of divulging state secrets to foreigners.

"Just like any other global company, Yahoo must ensure that its local country sites must operate within the laws, regulations and customs of the country in which they are based," Mary Osako, a Yahoo spokeswoman, said via e-mail.

The case highlights the difficulties that businesses can face when doing business in countries run by totalitarian governments. Reporters Without Borders complained that Yahoo should have taken a different approach.

"Does the fact that (Yahoo) operates under Chinese law free it from all ethical considerations?" the group said in a statement.

Shi Tao, an editorial department head at the Contemporary Business News in China's Hunan Province, pled guilty to the charges, according to materials related to the case provided by Reporters Without Borders. He apparently hoped that doing so would reduce the penalty.

The incriminating e-mail, sent April 20, 2004, contained information regarding a Chinese government warning for its commissars, urging them to be vigilant ahead of the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre and to watch out for dissident activity.

The journalist sent the information via e-mail to a New York-based Web site advocating democracy in China and it was published under the alias 198964, the date Beijing crushed the student-led democracy movement, June 4, 1989.

IDG News Service

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