A human-rights group has filed a lawsuit against Yahoo Inc. for purportedly making available information to the Chinese government that led to the persecution, torture and detention of dissidents. The World Organization for Human Rights USA filed the lawsuit on behalf of Wang Xiaoning, who is serving a 10-year prison term for supporting Democratic reform in China in articles circulated on the Internet, and his wife, Yu Ling, who witnessed Beijing security officials barge into their home and arrest her 57-year old husband.
The suit has been filed in US District Court in San Francisco, which contends that the firm in question was complicit in the arrests of Wang Xiaoning and other Chinese Internet activists. However, the lawsuit is the latest occurrence in a campaign by advocacy groups to draw attention to the conduct of US companies in China. As the companies are locked in fierce competition seeking larger chunk of the thriving Chinese market, Yahoo and other US firms have sometimes break free from core American values, such as free speech, to act in accordance with the local government’s laws.
The suit is filed under the Alien Tort Claims Act and the Torture Victims Protection Act, which is supposed to be the first of its kind made against an US based internet firm. The suit is seeking damages and an injunction restricting Yahoo from identifying political opponents to the Chinese authorities. In addition, the suit, trying to hold Yahoo accountable, might become an important and representative test case. Interestingly, advocacy groups are sought to use a 217-year-old US law to penalize corporations for human rights violations abroad, an effort the Bush administration has earlier resisted.
The suit has mentioned that in 2001, Wang was using a Yahoo e-mail account to publish nameless writings to an Internet mailing list. The suit further contends that Yahoo, under pressure from the Chinese government, close off that account. Then Wang opened a new account via Yahoo and started publishing articles again; the suit claimed that Yahoo provided the government information that allowed it to recognize and arrest Wang in September 2002. The suit also mentioned that prosecutors in the Chinese courts had cited Yahoo’s cooperation.
Reacting on the development, a Yahoo spokesman has said, ‘the company is distressed that citizens in China have been imprisoned for expressing their political views on the internet, but said it had not had time to review Mr Wang’s lawsuit’. The internet giant further stated, ‘However, the concerns raised about the Chinese government compelling companies to follow Chinese law and disclose user information are not new. Companies doing business in China must comply with Chinese law or its local employees could be faced with civil and criminal penalties’.
