US:Internet company Yahoo asked a US federal court judge on Monday to dismiss a lawsuit brought against it by civil rights advocates, arguing that it had become unfairly ensnared in a political debate over free speech in China.
The company is fighting efforts to hold it accountable for the imprisonment and alleged torture of two Chinese citizens after it disclosed their identities to government officials. Yahoo says it did so to comply with the Chinese government's rules.
Yahoo's predicament illustrates the difficulty many internet companies face in expanding to China: they are information brokers in a country that tightly controls the spread of information.
"American firms are finding that to sell in China, you need to be in China," says Geoffrey Garrett, president of the Pacific Council on International Policy in Los Angeles. "Part of the deal seems to be, at the moment, because the Chinese government still controls the economy, that you have to play by the government's rules."
In a 40-page defence filed in Oakland on Monday, Yahoo argued that US courts were no place for airing political grievances against the Chinese government.
"This is a political and diplomatic issue, not a legal one," Yahoo spokeswoman Kelley Benander said. "The real issue here is the plaintiffs' outrage at the behaviour and laws of the Chinese government. The US court system is not the forum for addressing these political concerns."
The World Organisation for Human Rights USA filed the lawsuit in April on behalf of Wang Xiaoning, who is serving a 10-year prison sentence for advocating democratic reform in articles circulated on the internet, and his wife, Yu Ling. It later added journalist Shi Tao, who is serving a 10-year sentence for detailing the government restrictions imposed on journalists in connection with the 15-year anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown.
The suit alleges that these people - and others who have yet to be identified - were tortured or subjected to inhumane treatment because of information that Yahoo, Yahoo China or Alibaba.com, a Chinese company in which Yahoo has a stake, provided the government.
Yahoo does not dispute turning over information in response to Chinese government demands, but argues that there is little connection between that information and the ensuing arrest, prosecution and conviction of the prisoners.
In a separate filing, Yahoo has sought protection under a California statute which protects free speech rights.
"It is extraordinarily ironic that they would seek to invoke a free speech protection as the basis for getting rid of this case, when this case is based on a violation of free speech rights of Yahoo's own internet users," said Morton Sklar, a US-based human rights advocate.