In 2002, Wang Xiaoning was arbitrarily detained by Chinese police, convicted of "subversion," and sentenced to 10 years in prison for writings he published

using his Yahoo! email account (Wang Xiaoning’s wife, Yu Ling, pictured left).

In 2004, Shi Tao, a Chinese journalist, was detained, and convicted for emailing a description of the Chinese government’s instructions to journalists for the upcoming anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre (Shi Tao’s mother, pictured below). 

Both men were punished for exercising their freedom of speech because Yahoo! Inc.’s Chinese subsidiary provided their identifying information to the Chinese government. By turning its users’ personal information over to a regime determined to suppress any dissidence, Yahoo! enabled serious human rights abuses such as torture, forced labor, and arbitrary and prolonged detention.

In 2006, Yahoo! testified before the U.S. Congress that it was unaware of the nature of the charges against Shi Tao when it gave his personal information to the Chinese government. In April 2007, Human Rights USA filed a groundbreaking corporate accountability lawsuit against Yahoo! Inc. under the Alien Tort Statute (28 U.S.C.§ 1350; ATS, also called the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA)) Alien Tort Claims Act (1789) and Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991 (TVPA), 106 Stat. 73 (1992). Yahoo! filed motions to dismiss the lawsuit, claiming that the company was forced to provide internet user information to Chinese officials in order to comply with Chinese law, and that its communications with Chinese officials were privileged actions not subject to challenge in U.S. courts. In response to Yahoo!'s motions to dismiss, we sought initial and jurisdictional discovery from Yahoo!.

In the course of our litigation against Yahoo!, new evidence came to light that Yahoo! knew the charges against Shi Tao and disclosed his identity anyway. In November 2007 Yahoo! was called to testify about its actions in China before the bi-partisan House Committee on Foreign Affairs. Our clients’ families traveled from China to watch as the Committee questioned Yahoo!’s executives (see Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang and General Counsel Michael Callahan, pictured above). Referencing the discrepancy between Yahoo!’s leaders’ testimony in 2006 and the new evidence, the Committee Chair, Representative Tom Lantos, said Yahoo!’s failure to correct the record was ‘inexcusably negligent behavior at best and deliberately deceptive behavior at worst.

Rep. Lantos then told CEO Jerry Yang and General Counsel Michael Callahan to ‘beg forgivenessî from the families of the detainees. Both men turned and bowed to the women, and publicly apologized. One week later, Yahoo! and the families settled the lawsuit.

Shi Tao and Wang Xiaoning remain in prison. But this settlement made clear to the multi-billion dollar technology and telecommunications industry that facilitating the unlawful imprisonment of Internet users is not business as usual and has a high cost. Human Rights USA stands ready to support internet companies in their efforts to conform their business practices to universal human rights norms.