Een Chinees paar dat door een rechtengroep wordt gesteund heeft Yahoo! vervolgd voor het onthullen van informatie die de Chinese overheid hielp de man voor zijn Internet geschrift vervolgen.

Wang Xiaoning werd gevangen gezet 10 jaar vorig jaar voor „aansporing om staatsmacht“ te ontwrichten nadat hij e-mail bepleitend democratische hervorming en een multi-party systeem stuurde.

In de klacht die in het het districtshof van de V.S. wordt ingediend voor Noordelijk Californië, beweerden Wang en zijn Leng van vrouwenYu dat Yahoo! en zijn Chinese filialen keerden details aan eisers om die hielpen hem aan de autoriteiten identificeren.

“While in custody, plaintiffs were subjected to torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, including arbitrary, prolonged and indefinite detention, for expressing their free speech rights and for using the internet to communicate about democracy and human rights matters,” the complaint said.

Financial benefit

The suit, backed by the World Organisation for Human Rights USA, is seeking unspecified damages and wants Yahoo! to actively secure the release of any detainees.

The Washington DC-based group said Yahoo! benefited financially by working with Chinese authorities.

“Defendants had every reason to know and understand that the electronic communication user information they provided to authorities could well be used to assist in the infliction of such abuses as arbitrary arrest, torture, cruel, inhuman or other degrading threat and prolonged detention and/or forced labour,” it said.

China is the world’s second largest internet market.

Morton Sklar, the group’s executive director, said businesses “should not be participating actively in promoting and encouraging major human rights abuses”.

Company’s response

Yahoo! has acknowledged turning over data on its users but has said it is legally compelled to do so.

It said it was distressed that Chinese citizens had been sent to prison for expressing their views on the internet, but “companies doing business in China must comply with Chinese law or its local employees could be faced with civil and criminal penalties”.

Yahoo! said the US government should seek to lobby for political prisoners in China.

The suit names Yahoo!, its Hong Kong subsidiary and Alibaba.com, China’s largest e-commerce firm partly owned by Yahoo!, as defendants.

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