- Introduction
- I. Risks and Rights
- II. Outside the Arena
- III. Security, Surveillance, and Safety
- IV. Protecting Your Chinese Contacts
- V. The Great Firewall
- VI. Practical Information
- Map of China with 2008 Olympic Sites
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- Download PDF / French
- Download PDF / German
- Download PDF / Japanese
- Download PDF / Spanish
Internet censorship in China: the case of Shi Tao
Shi Tao is serving a 10-year sentence in China on charges of "divulging state secrets abroad." Shi worked as an editor for Dangdai Shang Bao (Contemporary Trade News), a newspaper in the city of Changsha, in Hunan Province. He also wrote essays calling for political reform that were posted on overseas news websites banned in China.
He was arrested in November 2004 for posting notes from a directive issued by China's Propaganda Department that instructed the media on how to cover the 15th anniversary of the military crackdown in Tiananmen Square. On April 27, 2005, the Changsha Intermediate People’s Court convicted Shi of the crime of “divulging state secrets abroad,” using information provided by US-based internet giant Yahoo, which provided crucial user identification. The court sentenced him to 10 years in prison, with subsequent deprivation of political rights for two years. Shi is currently serving his sentence in Hunan province’s Chishan Prison.
Shi's imprisonment highlights the Chinese government's intense efforts to control the internet, the only alternative to China's officially sanctioned print and broadcast media. The government monitors internet content, blocks websites, requires bloggers to register their identities, and solicits the help of companies doing business in China. This case has led to widespread criticism of Yahoo. At a US Congressional hearing held by the House Foreign Affairs Committee on November 6, 2007, the committee’s Chairman Tom Lantos told Yahoo Chief Executive Jerry Yang and General Counsel Michael Callahan: "While technologically and financially you are giants, morally you are pygmies." Later that month, Yahoo settled a lawsuit on behalf of Shi Tao and Wang Xiaoning, another imprisoned activist.
For further information on Shi Tao’s case, please see Human Rights Watch’s report, “Race to the Bottom”: Corporate Complicity in Chinese Internet Censorship (August 2006), available at: http://www.hrw.org/reports/2006/china0806/index.htm.
