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Yahoo Officials Defend Role In Chinese Journalist's Arrest

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By ERICA WERNER, The Associated Press

Published: November 7, 2007

WASHINGTON - Two top Yahoo officials on Tuesday defended their company's role in the jailing of a Chinese journalist but ran into withering criticism from lawmakers who accused them of complicity with an oppressive communist regime.

"While technologically and financially you are giants, morally you are pygmies," House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Tom Lantos, D-Calif., said angrily after hearing from the two Yahoo executives.

He angrily urged Yahoo Chief Executive Officer Jerry Yang and General Counsel Michael Callahan to apologize to journalist Shi Tao's mother, who was sitting directly behind them.
Shi Tao was sent to jail for 10 years for engaging in pro-democracy efforts deemed subversive after Yahoo turned over information about his online activities requested by Chinese authorities.

Yang and Callahan turned around from the witness table and bowed from their seats to Shi's mother, Gao Qinsheng, who bowed in return and then began to weep.

Yang contended that Yahoo "has been open and forthcoming with this committee at every step of this investigative process" - a contention Lantos and other committee members rejected.

The committee is investigating statements Callahan made at a congressional hearing early last year.

Callahan said at the time that the Sunnyvale, Calif., Internet giant had no information about the nature of the Chinese government's investigation of Shi when the company turned over information about him.

Callahan has since acknowledged that Yahoo officials had received a subpoena-like document that made reference to suspected "illegal provision of state secrets" - a common charge against political dissidents.

Last week Callahan issued a statement saying he learned the details of the document months after his February 2006 testimony, and that he regretted not alerting the committee to it once he knew about it.

He reiterated that regret Tuesday and contended that Yahoo employees in China had little choice but to comply with the government's demands.

"I cannot ask our local employees to resist lawful demands and put their own freedom at risk, even if, in my personal view, the local laws are overbroad," Callahan said.

Lantos rejected that argument.

"I do not believe that America's best and brightest companies should be playing integral roles in China's notorious and brutal political repression apparatus," he said.

Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., compared Yahoo's cooperation with the Chinese government to companies that cooperated with Nazi Germany during World War II.

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