STATE SECRETS: CHINA'S LEGAL LABYRINTH - HRIC

C A S E S T O R Y
Shi Tao
26 HUMAN RIGHTS IN CHINA STATE SECRETS: CHINA’S LEGAL LABYRINTH
Shi Tao (师涛) was a freelance writer, journalist, and head of the news division
at the daily Dangdai Shangbao (Contemporary Business News) in Changsha,
Hunan Province. He had also written numerous essays for overseas Internet
forums, including one entitled “The Most Disgusting Day,” in which he criti-
cized the Chinese government for the March 28 detention of Ding Zilin, a
Tiananmen Mothers activist whose son was killed during the 1989 democracy
movement.
On April 20, 2004, Shi attended a Dangdai Shangbao staff meeting in which
the contents of a CPC Central Propaganda Bureau document about security
concerns and preparation for the upcoming 15th anniversary of the June 4th
crackdown were discussed. That evening, Shi used his personal Yahoo! e-mail
account to send his notes about this meeting to the New York-based Web site,
Democracy Forum. As a result, he was detained on November 24, 2004 and
was tried for “illegally providing state secrets overseas” under Article 111 of
the Criminal Law on April 27, 2005. Because the document was certified a
“top secret” state secret, he was sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment.
In his eloquent appeal, Shi wrote: “We give up our life and property in order
for the government to ‘maintain secrecy,’ ordinary citizens become targets of
punishment, the news media is surgically operated on, and the people’s ‘right
to know’ is treated like a joke. And the government just goes on in its own
way, making mistake after mistake. This is the greatest hidden danger of
China’s stability work.” His appeal for a re-examination of the case was denied.
In his brief for the appeal that he lost, Shi Tao described the harassment that
can be leveled at journalists who circumvent the system of information con-
trol. “[The government has] expended vast amounts of manpower, materials
and financial resources on the long process of placing me under control and
surveillance, tailing me, tapping my phone, and finally capturing me and
throwing me into prison . . . it’s impossible for [my family and friends] to
comprehend the tremendous psycholog-
ical pressure that I’ve been under.
Although being in prison is surely terri-
ble, losing one’s sense of privacy and
safety is even more terrifying.”
Information on the above case is taken
from HRIC’s human rights database.
See also “Case Highlight: Shi Tao and
Yahoo!” on HRIC's website.
Shi Tao