According to the human rights group Reporters Without Borders, Yahoo has cooperated with Chinese authorities to arrest a dissident named Li Zhi who has been given an 8 year jail sentence.
Reporters Without Borders called on Yahoo ! to supply a list of all cyberdissidents it has provided data on, beginning with 81 people in China whose release the worldwide press freedom organization is currently campaigning for.
It said it had discovered that Yahoo! customer and cyberdissident Li Zhi had been given his eight-year prison sentence in December 2003 based on electronic records provided by Yahoo. “How many more cases are we going to find ?” it asked.
“We were sure the case of Shi Tao, who was jailed for 10 years last April on the basis of Yahoo-supplied data, was not the only one. Now we know Yahoo works regularly and efficiently with the Chinese police.
According to Reporters Without Borders, there are currently 42 internet dissidents and 32 journalists in prison in China for posting something on the internet critical of the government.
Let’s not forget that Yahoo gave the American government millions of records it wanted, allegedly to bolster the Child Online Protection Act, which was ruled probably unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 2004.
Is it time to organize a boycott of Yahoo?
Cross-posted from Flogging the Simian
Peace