Attacks on the Press in 2010 - Committee to Protect Journalists

Journalists in PrisonHe was formally charged with “providing state secrets to foreigners”by sending an e-mail on his Yahoo account to the U.S.-based editor ofthe website Minzhu Luntan (Democracy Forum). In an anonymouse-mail sent several months before his arrest, Shi transcribed his notesfrom local propaganda department instructions to his newspaper,which included directives on coverage of the Falun Gong and the upcoming15th anniversary of the military crackdown on demonstratorsat Tiananmen Square.The National Administration for the Protection of State Secrets retroactivelycertified the contents of the e-mail as classified, the officialXinhua News Agency reported.On April 27, 2005, the Changsha Intermediate People’s Court foundShi guilty and sentenced him to a 10-year prison term. In June of thatyear, the Hunan Province High People’s Court rejected his appealwithout granting a hearing.Court documents in the case revealed that Yahoo supplied informationto Chinese authorities that helped them identify Shi as the senderof the e-mail. Yahoo’s participation in the identification of Shi andother jailed dissidents raised questions about the role that internationalInternet companies play in the repression of online speech in Chinaand elsewhere.In November 2005, CPJ honored Shi with its annual InternationalPress Freedom Award for his courage in defending the ideals offree expression. In November 2007, members of the U.S. HouseCommittee on Foreign Affairs rebuked Yahoo executives for theirrole in the case and for wrongly testifying in earlier hearings that thecompany did not know the Chinese government’s intentions when itsought Shi’s account information.Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft later joined with human rights organizations,academics, and investors to form the Global NetworkInitiative, which adopted a set of principles to protect online privacyand free expression in October 2008.Human Rights Watch awarded Shi a Hellman/Hammett grant forpersecuted writers in October 2009.imprisoned: december 3, 2004Zheng Yichun, freelanceZheng, a former professor, was a regular contributor to overseas newswebsites, including the U.S.-based Epoch Times, which is affiliatedwith the banned religious movement Falun Gong. He wrote a series of349