dck
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作者：dck 在 罕见奇谈 发贴, 来自 http://www.hjclub.org
美国人权组织状告雅虎泄漏中国异议人士隐私 2007.04.19
美国国际人权组织代表中国部分网络异议人士向雅虎公司发起诉讼，控告该公司向中国政府提供他们的个人信息，导致中国政府对他们的拘禁和迫害。下面是自由亚洲电台记者杨家岱的采访报道。
图片：香港民主党人士在雅虎香港公司外抗议。2005年10月18日（法新社）
美国国际人权组织国际正义项目部主任哈里斯星期四接受本台记者采访时证实，该组织已经代表中国网络异议人士王小宁等人，向旧金山地区联邦法庭递交了对雅虎公司的诉讼状：
“我们是代表因雅虎公司向中国政府提供信息而遭到逮捕的那些人提起诉讼的。我们将向法庭提供相关证据；至于民事赔偿问题，将由法庭和陪审团来裁决。”
哈里斯说，由于中国政府作为主权国家的政府在美国享有的诉讼豁免权，所以不便对中国政府发起诉讼。她说，雅虎作为一家美国公司，在此案中负有不可推卸的法律责任：
“雅虎有责任保护使用它的服务的人的隐私，应当了解这种个人隐私没有得到保护的后果。我们不认为雅虎应当停止与中国做生意，但是我们相信它应当以符合国际人权标准的、负责任的方式来做生意。一个公司有责任不在一国政府对人权的压制中起协从作用。”
网络杂志《大参考》主编、政论家李洪宽表示，雅虎这样的公司去中国的目的只是赚钱，它们并不在乎中国的人权状况。他批评那些所谓给中国提供互联网服务将给中国带去自由的说法在很大程度上是骗人的：
“中国加入WTO的时候，中国要求得到PNTR的时候，这些公司都是帮助中国政府说话，说‘我们这些互联网公司进去，顺便也带去了自由。’这个说法有时似是而非，很多人信它，信它是因为一部分人是糊涂，一部分人是他们花钱雇的，帮他们说话，但他们所说的30％是正确的，70％是骗人的。为什么这么说，因为现在整体的中国环境就是这个公司要想到中国盈利，必须要遵守中国的法律，而中国的法律是限制民主，限制自由，这些公司的真正目的是不在乎中国人民的人权状况是增加还是减少了，它主要在乎的是它去了能不能盈利。”
李洪宽对美国国际人权组织在这次诉讼中胜诉不抱乐观态度，但是他认为这个组织作了一件很有意义的事：
“打胜的可能性是绝对没有，如果雅虎输了，它也绝对不会认输，它会不断上诉，最后还是打不过它，它有充足的钱，而且它的律师本身就是非常优秀的，干这个的。但是这个事是有意义的，值得去做。”
李洪宽说，雅虎等互联网公司曾因它们对中国钳制互联网自由所起的协从作用而在美国国会受到严厉批评，但他们看来并没有改弦更张。他说，热衷于与中国做生意的美国工商界面临着道德的困境。
这是自由亚洲电台记者杨家岱的采访报道。
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发表于 2007-4-20 01:29 PM 资料 个人空间 短消息 加为好友
王小宁控告YAHOO, 师涛没有参与诉讼
王小宁控告YAHOO, 师涛没有参与诉讼
点这里看状纸
http://www.humanrightsusa.org/mo ... eq=getit&lid=38
BBC中文网报道
被中国监禁的网络作家王小宁的家人与"美国人权世界机构"控告雅虎向北京当局透露信息导致异议人士被捕。
在美国北加州地区法院向雅虎提出诉讼的兴讼人包括王小宁本人、他的妻子余陵、和在华盛顿设总部的"美国人权世界机构"（World Organization for Human Rights USA）。
美联社报道，雅虎发言人卡利南在没有直接回应有关诉讼，不过他表示，这类事件比较适合放在外交层面解决。
王小宁曾在网上发表主张中国民主化的文章，在2003年9月因煽动颠覆国家政权罪被当局判刑10年。
雅虎公司承认向北京当局披露了用户的电邮资料，雅虎高层曾表示在外国的业务必须遵守当地法律。
美联社周四（4月19日）引述美国人权世界机构行政总监斯克拉表示，他知道有另外三起个案，但有关异议人士担心在中国的家人的安危而不愿意加入兴讼，当中包括正在湖南服刑的师涛。
斯克拉说，诉讼的其中一部分是要找出雅虎这种做法有多普遍，以及阻止其他美国机构成为串通者。
路透社披露的诉讼文件内容显示，"兴讼人因为发表自由的言论和利用互联网讨论民主和人权的议题而被拘留，在拘留期间受到虐待、不人道的对待。辩方有充分理由相信他们向当局提供的电子通讯信息可能会导致这些情况。"
雅虎公司发表声明说，对于有中国公民因在网上发表异见而被囚感到不安，但他们深信继续在中国提供服务有助改善该国民众的生活。
雅虎强调在中国业务的雇员必须按照中国法律办事，否则会面对民事和刑事方面的惩罚。
阿里巴巴、雅虎在美国被中国政治犯告上法庭！
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-yahoo19apr19,1,7475644.story?coll=la-headlines-business
THE INTERNET
Yahoo sued over data on Chinese dissidents
By Dawn C. Chmielewski
Times Staff Writer
April 19, 2007
A human-rights group filed a lawsuit Wednesday against Yahoo Inc. for allegedly providing information to the Chinese government that led to the persecution, torture and imprisonment of dissidents.
The World Organization for Human Rights USA filed the lawsuit on behalf of Wang Xiaoning, who is serving a 10-year prison sentence for advocating Democratic reform in China in articles circulated on the Internet, and his wife, Yu Ling, who watched Beijing security officials barge into their home and arrest her husband of 27 years.
The suit seeks damages for Wang, Yu and others who have been arbitrarily detained, tortured or subjected to inhumane treatment at the hands of Chinese authorities because of information Yahoo allegedly provided the government. It also seeks Yahoo's help in securing the release of these prisoners and a court order to prevent it from taking similar actions in the future.
"U.S. corporations doing business in places like China, that have highly repressive practices and commit human rights violations on a systemic basis, need to ask themselves a question: Are the actions I'm taking or the information I'm providing putting people at risk?" said Morton Sklar, executive director of the World Organization for Human Rights USA.
American technology companies including Google Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Cisco Systems Inc. have drawn mounting criticism. At a congressional hearing in February, these companies acknowledged making compromises to do business in the world's second-largest Internet market, which has at least 130 million users. Google is accused of blocking access to sites that the Chinese government deems sensitive. Cisco Systems has sold China equipment that authorities use to block access to such sites. Yahoo has come under fire for signing a pledge to abide by all censorship laws.
"Yahoo, as a commercial organ, has a duty to protect its customers' privacy; this is the bottom line," said Li Jian, a human rights activist based in Dalian, China. Li, whose website is often blocked by the government, added that "I am sure there are many more cases behind what has been exposed."
Sklar said his organization targeted Yahoo because of the extent of evidence against the Sunnyvale, Calif., company. The Chinese courts cited Yahoo as being instrumental in the arrest and conviction of Wang, who distributed his political journals and articles by e-mail through a Yahoo message group and later over the Internet anonymously.
Yahoo's Hong Kong subsidiary provided local police with information linking Wang to the e-mails and other pro-Democracy comments, the suit alleges.
On Sept. 1, 2002, 10 security police officers raided his home, seized computers and manuscripts and detained him without informing his family of the charges. He was held in a detention facility where he repeatedly was beaten and kicked and forced to confess to engaging in "anti-state" activities, the suit alleges. On Sept. 12, 2003, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
"Jim Cullinan, Yahoo's director of public affairs, said the company had not seen the lawsuit. But he said American companies doing business in China were required to comply with local law — or else their employees would face civil or criminal penalties.
Cullinan said the Chinese authorities did not disclose to Yahoo why they were seeking certain information or even the nature of the underlying criminal investigation. He said Yahoo had no way of knowing whether the demand for information was related to a legitimate criminal investigation or would be used to persecute a political dissident.
"Yahoo is distressed that citizens in China have been imprisoned for expressing their political views online," Cullinan said. "We call on the U.S. State Department to continue making this issue a top priority in bilateral and multilateral engagements with the Chinese government to the end result of securing the freedom of these dissidents."
[email protected]
Times staff writer Don Lee contributed to this report.
* * * * * ** * *******
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp ... ferrer=emailarticle
Advocates Sue Yahoo In Chinese Torture Case
By Ariana Eunjung Cha and Sam Diaz
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, April 19, 2007; Page D01
SHANGHAI, April 18 -- A human rights group sued Yahoo on Wednesday, accusing the Internet giant of abetting the torture of pro-democracy writers by releasing data that allowed China's government to identify them.
The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, says the company was complicit in the arrests of 57-year-old Wang Xiaoning and other Chinese Internet activists. The suit is the latest development in a campaign by advocacy groups to spotlight the conduct of U.S. companies in China.
As they seek a slice of the booming Chinese market, Yahoo and other American companies have sometimes set aside core American values, such as free speech, to comply with the communist government's laws.
The suit, in trying to hold Yahoo accountable, could become an important test case. Advocacy groups are seeking to use a 217-year-old U.S. law to punish corporations for human rights violations abroad, an effort the Bush administration has opposed.
In 2003, Wang began serving a 10-year sentence on charges that he incited subversion with online treatises criticizing the government. He is named as a plaintiff in the Yahoo suit, which was filed with help from the World Organization for Human Rights USA, based in Washington.
Yahoo is guilty of "an act of corporate irresponsibility," said Morton Sklar, executive director of the group. "Yahoo had reason to know that if they provided China with identification information that those individuals would be arrested."
Wang's wife, Yu Ling, said her husband is imprisoned in a labor camp and has been subjected to beatings. In an interview in Washington, she said through an interpreter that American technology companies such as Yahoo should be held to a high standard in their overseas conduct. She said Yahoo gave the Chinese government personal information tied to e-mail accounts that Wang used to distribute his writings,
The suit says that in 2001, Wang was using a Yahoo e-mail account to post anonymous writings to an Internet mailing list. The suit alleges that Yahoo, under pressure from the Chinese government, blocked that account. Wang set up a new account via Yahoo and began sending material again; the suit alleges that Yahoo gave the government information that allowed it to identify and arrest Wang in September 2002. The suit says prosecutors in the Chinese courts cited Yahoo's cooperation.
Jim Cullinan, a spokesman for Yahoo, of Sunnyvale, Calif., said he could not comment on the suit or the specifics of Wang's case because he had not seen the papers Wednesday afternoon. But he said Yahoo condemns the suppression of speech.
Companies that do business in other countries have to follow the laws of that country or their employees could be subject to penalties, he said. In addition, governments are not required to tell a company why they want information.
"No company would know if it is for a legitimate criminal investigation, or if it's a matter of public safety, or it's being used to prosecute political dissidents," Cullinan said.
Yahoo's stance infuriates Yu, Wang's wife.
"The Yahoo company didn't even say 'sorry,' " she said. "They think they haven't done anything wrong."
There were hopes in China that President Hu Jintao would loosen strict controls over the flow of information, but the opposite has happened. The Internet is heavily censored. Across the country, Internet cafes are being shuttered. Last month, Caijing, a business magazine, was pulled off newsstands because it contained information about a sensitive private-property law.
Yahoo isn't the only American technology company that has made compromises to operate in China. Cisco has supplied routers that allow the government to divert Internet traffic away from references to the Tiananmen Square massacre. Microsoft's blog service has filtered words such as democracy, and Google's search engine has blocked sites flagged by the government.
In recent years, activists working with overseas plaintiffs have sued roughly two dozen businesses under the Alien Tort Claims Act, which the activists say grants jurisdiction to American courts over acts abroad that violate international norms. Written by the Founding Fathers in 1789 for a different purpose, the law was rarely invoked until the 1980s.
In 2004, Unocal, an energy company, paid an undisclosed sum to settle a suit that accused it of complicity in human rights abuses during construction of a gas pipeline in Burma. Several U.S. companies are being targeted for activities under the old apartheid regime in South Africa.
"The law says you can't just close your eyes" and claim you didn't know what might happen, said Beth Stephens, a professor at Rutgers University who specializes in human rights law. "You're negligent if you should have known."
U.S. companies have called such suits a threat to their ability to do business abroad.
The courts have not set a standard on how involved in abuses a corporation has to be before it can be found liable. The State and Justice departments under the Bush administration have argued for a narrow standard of liability, Stephens said, contending that a broad interpretation "endangers our economic relations with foreign countries."
Hurst Hannum, a professor of law at Hong Kong University, said such suits also put companies in the position of being accused of complicity even when their connection to the abuses is tenuous.
"One way to look at it is to imagine that this was the United States and the request was of Yahoo [for the name] of a terrorist suspect who was using the Internet," he said. "What would Yahoo be expected to do? I think they would be expected to comply."
Even so, others contend, what Yahoo did violates human rights.
"There's a concern that media companies in China are sacrificing free-press issues to benefit the business end of their companies," said Doreen Weisenhaus, director of the Media Law Project at the University of Hong Kong.
Wang and his wife are the only plaintiffs named in the suit, though others may be added later. While offering few specifics, the suit claims Yahoo may have turned over information on as many as 60 people who were subsequently arrested for pro-democracy activism. Among the cases that have come to light are those of writers Shi Tao, Li Zhi and Jiang Lijun.
Shi, a business journalist, was arrested in 2004 after he used his Yahoo e-mail account to distribute a Communist Party document to an overseas pro-democracy Web site. Li, from southwestern China, was sentenced to prison in 2003 after he posted comments on the Internet criticizing official corruption. Jiang, a freelance writer, was detained in 2002 and sent to prison in 2003 after he published an open letter to the party calling for democratic reform.
Wang, born in the rust-belt capital of Shenyang in China's northeast, was an engineer who moonlighted as a political commentator, churning out dozens of newsletters and journals over more than 15 years. "Outwardly democratic but inwardly despotic" was how Wang described China's government in one essay.
The police raided his home Sept. 1, 2002, confiscating files, notes, an address book and two personal computers, according to Wang's wife, Yu. Wang was ultimately convicted of "incitement to subvert state power."
Yu said visits with her husband are limited to one 30-minute session a month. In the earliest visits, before he was sentenced and transferred to prison, she could tell he had been abused, she said.
"They beat him, they kicked him, to get his confession, to tell them more, not just about himself but others in his group," she said.
In China, Yu said, news organizations don't dare tell his story. And no lawyer there would take her case. With her husband's blessing, she traveled to the United States in search of justice. "Even when it is extremely difficult, you shall still do it for me," Wang wrote to her in a letter last year.
Traveling to the United States, filing suit against a big company and speaking out against her government is risky for Yu, 55, whose eyes show that she's not well rested and whose frame seems to indicate that she doesn't eat much. Although she does not think she has committed a crime by speaking out, "you never know in China whether they have a reason or not to take you away."
Yu said she wouldn't be surprised to find police waiting for her when she returns to China.
Diaz reported from Washington.
作者：dck 在 罕见奇谈 发贴, 来自 http://www.hjclub.org |
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阿里巴巴、雅虎在美国被中国在押政治犯告上法庭！
