Shi Tao (journalist)

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Shi Tao ( Simplified Chinese : 师涛, Traditional Chinese : 師濤; Pinyin : Shī Tāo, born July 25, 1968 in Yanchi ) is a Chinese journalist, writer and poet. Shi was sentenced to ten years in prison in 2005 for "disclosing state secrets" to "hostile elements" abroad. He had published a Communist Party document warning Chinese journalists ahead of the 15th anniversary of the bloody crackdown on the democracy movement on June 4, 1989. Shi had sent this document to an overseas Chinese democracy website through his personal Yahoo account.

It was later discovered that Yahoo! China ( Alibaba Group ) allegedly contributed to his arrest by providing his personal details to the Chinese government. Yahoo was then condemned by a United States Congress . Yahoo settled a lawsuit involving Shi's family out of court, and the group pledged to reform its practices.

After Shi was arrested, he won two major international journalism prizes, the CPJ International Press Freedom Awards of the Committee to Protect Journalists and the World Association of Newspapers' Golden Pen of Freedom Award of the WAN-IFRA (World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers).

In September 2013, Shi Tao was released from prison. Shi received an 18-month reduction in his sentence after serving eight years and six months in prison. Shi now lives with his mother in Yinchuan , Ningxia .

Background / life

Shi Tao was born in 1968 in Yanchi County, Wuzhong (Ningxia) , China. According to Liu Xiaobo , Shi became active in the Chinese democracy movement in 1989, around the time of the protests in Tian'anmen Square . In July 1991 he received a diploma from East China Normal University in Shanghai . Shi married the following year.

Before his arrest was Shi editor at the Dangdai Shang Bao (Neuzeitliche Business News), a newspaper in Changsha in the province of Hunan . In the run-up to the 15th anniversary of the Tian'anmen massacre , the journalists received a directive on what to expect. Shi emailed a summary of this directive to the Asia Democracy Foundation, which published the directive.

This publication was discovered and with the help of Yahoo Hong Kong, Shi's IP address was found. He was arrested on December 14, 2004. His publication was classified as "top secret" and he was sentenced to ten years in prison. The human rights organization Amnesty International actively campaigned for his release.

Shi was released from prison on September 5, 2013. For reasons unknown, he was given an 18-month shortened sentence. He was thus serving an eight year and six month prison term. Today he lives in Yinchuan ( Ningxia ) with his mother.

Shi Tao is a member of the "Independent Chinese PEN Center" (ICPC). He is an honorary member of numerous other PEN centers that also campaigned for his release. A special action was started in the context of the China campaign of the international PEN , namely a poem relay race , the PEN Poem Relay .

This international PEN poem relay race revolved around the poem "June" (六月) by Shi Tao. It is a meditation on the tragedy of the military crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protests on June 4, 1989, an issue that remains censored in China . The poem has been translated, recited and recorded in more than 90 languages ​​in PEN centers around the world.

Arrest and imprisonment

On April 20, 2004, Shi Tao received a document from the Communist Party authorities instructing journalists not to announce the upcoming fifteenth anniversary of the “Fourth Anniversary”. June event ”, the Tian'anmen massacre. The document warned of the infiltration and sabotage of foreigners and Falun Gong, and stated that media members "must properly guide public opinion" and "must never express opinions that are inconsistent with central politics." Shi used his Yahoo Mail account to send an anonymous post to the New York-based Chinese-language website that described the communication.

At the request of the Chinese government, Yahoo provided records confirming that Shi's account had sent the email. Shi was unofficially arrested on November 24, 2004, and on December 14, he was officially arrested under state security laws on the grounds of divulging state secrets. During Shi's trial, his attorney argued that his sentence should be light because disclosing the information would not have caused China any great harm. In June he was sentenced to ten years in prison.

Shi's appeal to the Hunan Province Supreme People's Court was denied without a hearing. Shi's mother, Gao Qinsheng, filed a request for a review of the complaint on his behalf in August 2005. The appeal was unsuccessful, and Shi has since been sent to Chishan Prison for forced labor . Shi began to suffer from respiratory problems and in April 2006 developed an ulcer and heart problems. In June 2007, he was sent to Deshan Prison for medical treatment, where he was forced to work in a machine factory, and his health was reportedly improving. According to Amnesty International , after Shi's arrest, his mother, brother and uncle were harassed and his wife was repeatedly interrogated and pressured to divorce him, which she eventually did.

Several international non-governmental organizations protested Shi's imprisonment. Amnesty International labeled him a prisoner of conscience and requested his immediate release. The Congressional-Executive Commission on China describes him as a political prisoner. Reporters Without Borders launched a petition demanding his release, while the Committee for the Protection of Journalists described itself as "outraged" by the arrest. Human Rights Watch called him a detained "human rights defender" and advocated his release.

Yahoo's role

The incident sparked controversy over the business practices of Yahoo, whose Hong Kong arm provided technical information linking the message and the email account to Shi Tao's computer. Yahoo has been criticized by Reporters Without Borders for acting as a "police informant". Yahoo was asked to report the incident to the United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs of the United States Congress in 2006 .

In August 2007, Congress began an investigation into Yahoo's handling of the case with Yahoo's co-founder Jerry Yang (Entrepreneur) , who testified at another congressional hearing. The congressional panel found that Yahoo's statement in 2006, in which a Yahoo executive falsely claimed that the company did not know the reason for China's request for information, was "at best inexcusably negligent behavior and, at worst, deliberately deceptive behavior." Chairman Tom Lantos told Yang to “ask forgiveness” for Shi's mother, who attended the hearing, stating that “much of this statement shows that you are technologically and financially giants, but morally you are pygmy.” Chris Smith (politician) noted that in this case there was a "parallel" between the actions of Yahoo and the companies that helped Nazi Germany find Jews during the Holocaust . Yang apologized to Shi's mother, saying that he did not believe that any Yahoo employee was "trying to do something wrong" and that the company had an obligation to "protect and promote freedom of expression and privacy." Yang testified that the company was working with human rights organizations on an industry code to protect human rights. Yang later met with Shi's family.

In 2007, the World Organization for Human Rights in San Francisco filed charges against Yahoo for allegedly providing the Chinese government with information (emails and IP addresses ) that led to the arrest of journalists Shi Tao and Wang Xiaoning . After Yahoo unsuccessfully tried to have the ad rejected, Yahoo settled out of court on an undisclosed sum.

When US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was about to travel to China in February 2008, Yang appealed to her to “seek the release of Shi Tao, Wang Xiaoning and other Chinese dissidents who had been jailed for exercising internationally recognized rights of opinion, to actively use ".

Awards and recognition

On October 18, 2005, the Journalists' Protection Committee announced that Shi Tao was one of the four winners of the 2005 CPJ International Press Freedom Awards . The committee's website stated that he would officially receive the award when released from prison.

In March 2006 Shi received the Vasyl Stus Prize, which was named after the Ukrainian dissident, and which is awarded for “talent and courage”. On November 28, 2006, Shi was named WAN-IFRA's Golden Pen of Freedom Award Winner . His mother accepted the award on his behalf. In 2009, Human Rights Watch awarded Shi a Hellman / Hammett Fellowship recognizing "Commitment to Freedom of Expression" and "Courage in the Face of Political Persecution."

A few days before the start of the Olympic Games in Beijing, a “poetic petition” from the International PEN was sent to the Chinese rulers as part of the virtual relay race .

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e CHINA: JOURNALIST SHI TAO EARLY RELEASED , Amnesty International, September 19, 2013, accessed June 9, 2017
  2. ↑ a b c d e Joseph Kahn, Yahoo helped Chinese to prosecute journalist , The New York Times, September 8, 2005, accessed June 9, 2017
  3. ↑ Journalist arrested with the support of Yahoo , Frankfurter Allgemeine, September 8, 2005, accessed June 9, 2017
  4. ↑ a b Jailed Chinese Journalist Wins WAN Golden Pen of Freedom ( October 7, 2012 memento on WebCite ), World Association of Newspapers, November 28, 2006, accessed June 9, 2017
  5. ↑ Golden Pen of Freedom, Read about 2007 winner Shi Tao ( Memento of March 7, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), WAN - World Association of Newspapers, 2007, accessed June 9, 2017
  6. ^ A b CPJ presents International Press Freedom Awards ( Memento December 25, 2005 in the Internet Archive ), Committee to Protect Journalists, November 23, 2005, accessed June 9, 2017
  7. ↑ Conviction after Yahoo Treason: Chinese Journalist Released Early from Prison , Der Spiegel, September 8, 2013, accessed June 9, 2017
  8. ↑ a b c d e f English PEN, Shi Tao ( Memento from October 7, 2012 on WebCite ), WebCite, February 29, 2008, accessed on June 9, 2017
  9. ↑ Liu Xiaobo, Liu Xiaobo's letter to Yahoo! , Human Rights Watch, October 7, 2005, accessed June 9, 2017
  10. ↑ a b IPFA 2005 - Shi Tao ( Memento October 15, 2012 on WebCite ), Committee to Protect Journalists CPJ, 2005, accessed June 9, 2017
  11. ^ A b c Imprisoned journalist Shi Tao's family files for review of appeal , Committee to Protect Journalists, August 25, 2005, accessed June 9, 2017
  12. ↑ a b c With a virtual relay race, the International PEN carries the poem "June" by SHI Tao around the world as a torch for freedom of expression in China , International PEN Poem Relay, August 3, 2008, accessed on June 9, 2017
  13. ↑ a b c China: Legacy of the Beijing Olympics: Free Shi Tao: China's choice, your voice , Amnesty International, February 1, 2008, accessed June 9, 2017
  14. ↑ Appendix III: Details of Shi Tao's case , Human Rights Watch, accessed June 9, 2017
  15. ↑ a b Guido Fawkes, It could have been me: Guido Fawkes on Shi Tao ( Memento of October 30, 2017 in the Internet Archive ), The New Statesman - via HighBeam Research, August 20, 2007, accessed on June 9, 2017
  16. ^ Congressional - Executive Commission on China, Political Prisoner Database: Shi Tao ( Memento of November 3, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), November 3, 2010, accessed June 9, 2017
  17. ↑ Shi Tao ( Memento of March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), Reporters Without Borders, April 2015, accessed June 9, 2017
  18. ↑ Journalist imprisoned , Committee to Protect Journalists, December 8, 2004, accessed June 9, 2017
  19. ↑ China's Rights Defenders , Human Rights Watch, 2012, accessed June 9, 2017
  20. ↑ Yahoo 'helped jail China writer' , BBC News, September 7, 2005, accessed June 9, 2017
  21. ↑ a b Stephanie Kirchgaessner, Richard Waters, Yahoo faces scrutiny in China case ( Memento from August 17, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), MSNBC, August 8, 2007, accessed on June 9, 2017
  22. ↑ a b c US rebukes Yahoo over China case , BBC News, November 6, 2007, accessed June 9, 2017
  23. ↑ a b Yahoo chief apologizes to Chinese dissidents' relatives , The New York Times, November 7, 2007, accessed June 9, 2017
  24. ^ Dana Milbank, Searching for an Explanation: No Results Found ( October 31, 2017 memento on the Internet Archive ), The Washington Post - via HighBeam Research, November 7, 2007, accessed June 9, 2017
  25. ↑ a b Erica Werner, Yahoo settles lawsuit by jailed journalists over decision to give info to Chinese government , The Sydney Morning Herald, November 14, 2007, accessed June 9, 2017
  26. ↑ Yahoo plea over China rights case , BBC News, August 28, 2007, accessed June 9, 2017
  27. ↑ a b Yahoo seeks to dismiss China case ( memento June 27, 2018 in the Internet Archive ), Associated Press - via HighBeam Research, August 28, 2007, accessed June 9, 2017
  28. ↑ Dibya Sarkar, Yahoo Asks US Gov't to Help Dissidents ( March 8, 2016 memento on the Internet Archive ), Associated Press, February 21, 2008, accessed June 9, 2017
  29. ^ Banned, Censored, Harassed, and Jailed , Human Rights Watch, October 11, 2009, accessed June 9, 2017
personal data
SURNAME Shi, Tao
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Shī, Tāo (Pinyin)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Chinese journalist, writer and poet
DATE OF BIRTH July 25, 1968
PLACE OF BIRTH Yanchi