Yahoo Seeks Dismissal of Human Rights Lawsuit (NewsFactor)
Yahoo's 40-page defense contended that American courts should not be the place for protesting the practices of the Chinese government, and that Yahoo was complying with the laws of China in its actions.
Yahoo spokesperson Kelley Benander was quoted by news outlets as saying that this is "a political and diplomatic issue, not a legal one." She added that the U.S. courts should not be the forum for "the plaintiffs' outrage" at China's leaders.
Ten-Year Prison Sentence
The plaintiff is the World Organization for Human Rights (WOHR) USA, which sued in April on behalf of Wang Xiaoning and journalist Shi Tao, who are serving 10-year sentences for advocating democracy and a free press.
The suit said that Yahoo, its Yahoo HK and Yahoo China subsidiaries, and its strategic partner , provided Chinese officials with e-mail records, messages, addresses, user ID numbers, and other identifying information about the plaintiffs, as well as the "nature and content of their use of electronic communications."
By providing this information, the suit continued, Yahoo and its associates "knowingly and willfully aided and abetted in the commission of torture and other major abuses violating international law." It also said that WOHR has identified "at least 60 individuals" imprisoned in China for supporting democracy or human rights, whose imprisonment is linked to Internet and electronic communications revealed by Yahoo.
'Yahoo Written All Over the Place'
Wang's wife, Yu Ling, has related that 10 Chinese police came to their home in early September 2002. Wang was first detained and then arrested on charges that included "incitement to subvert state power." He wrote and published articles in several online publications that called for democracy and a multiparty system in his country.
Yu said that Chinese court papers indicated Yahoo had revealed to the authorities that her husband was the author of those articles. "All the different pages has [sic] Yahoo written all over the place," she said through a translator, in an interview earlier this year with NPR. "It's very prevalent to me that Yahoo is the culprit."
WOHR said that its suit was based on the U.S.'s Torture Victim Protection Act, which is covered by various treaty obligations, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, and other federal and state laws.
Morton Sklar, head of WOHR, told news outlets that, in passing the Torture Victims Protection Act, Congress said explicitly that "victims of torture should have access to U.S. courts to remedy the abuses they suffered." The suit seeks general, compensatory, and punitive damages, and an injunction against Yahoo to prevent such actions in the future and to secure its help in freeing the prisoners.
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