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Yahoo Settles With Imprisoned Chinese Journalists

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the stepping-up-to-the-plate dept.

Terms of the deal are secret, but Yahoo has reached settlements with two Chinese journalists who were arrested based on information the company provided to the ruling Communist government. "[...] a source at Yahoo said the company has been 'working with the families, and we're working with them to provide them with financial, humanitarian and legal assistance.' Yahoo has also agreed to establish a global human rights fund to provide 'humanitarian relief' to support dissidents and their families. The source said that details still have to be worked out."

5 of 106 comments (clear)

  1. Wow by db32 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This is rich. Yahoo gets dissenters thrown in prison. Yahoo then generates PR by funding these organizations. Somewhat like MS spending so much time/money in Africa helping with medical problems...that are tied to the chemical plants that the Gates Foundation invests in. Generate your own PR opportunities. Genius!

    --
    The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
  2. Re:Well, by superpulpsicle · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The loser = the guy in jail and Yahoo with the bad reputation.

    The winner = US government who continue to tax Yahoo. And the politician who insulted the CEO in public.

    This is more like US government vs US corporation. China has had the same law since the founding of the communist government.

  3. no law, of any nation by circletimessquare · · Score: 3, Interesting

    is to be respected, if that nation does not respect the will of it's people

    therefore, if the country is not democratic, anything goes: you as a citizen should not respect any law of your country

    authority is not to be respected if authority is not accountable to the common citizen

    if a government is accountable to theocrats, royals, despots, autocrats, or technocrats, that government is not to be respected, by its citizens, or the international community

    because those governments certainly don't respect their citizens

    only in a democracy are the will of the citizens respected, via the vote, so only in a democracy is the government accountable to its citizens, and only democratically elected governments are to be respected by its citizens and the international community

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  4. Re:Well, by MightyMartian · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The fact is that laws have always been incidental to the Communist regime in China. The notion of the "rule of law" has little meaning for the leadership. Essentially, how it works, is you have a practically meaningless legislature; the National Peoples' Congress, and you have the real power brokers, the President, the Premier of the State Council and the Peoples Liberation Army. For all intents in purposes, they do as they please, the only checks being each other. To imagine that one need actually have violated a law in China to be arrested in detained is hopelessly naive. There are any number of laws which can be made to apply, and if you piss of the Chinese government, you'll be hauled in, go through a show trial and then sent off to prison.

    The very idea that you can equate breaking Chinese laws, particularly those designed to shield the leadership and the organs of state from any kind of oversight by the people they claim to serve, with breaking the laws in a liberal democracy is just daft. The Chinese leadership simply has an entirely different view which isn't by any means the statutory view that you'll find in Western nations.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  5. Re:Well, by LingNoi · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I guess you also think that bulldozing down Chinese owner's homes to make space for the olympics is also...

    abiding by its own laws, customs, and regulations.
    When the BBC found the home owners in a jail for protesting the BBC crew wear beaten and then arrested (after being beaten). They were then made to delete the footage (they didn't because we were watching it).

    I couldn't find that video, but here is another.. http://youtube.com/watch?v=kxUZIG0Eea4

    Or perhaps we should look at how China kills more people a year then every other country in the world combined. Especially their treatment of Falun Gong worshippers. They beat them to death and tell people they committed suicide. Then they take the dead body to the hospital for organ harvesting.

    I found a video on that here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=Fkf2u1Umzi4

    Does the U.S. not have the right to enforce its own laws? Why not so with China? Just because you are American and don't like China (even though you buy the majority of your imports from them)? Hypocrisy is rich.
    It's got nothing to do with hating china and when you use that line you sound like you're working for the Chinese government, because that is EXACTLY what their defence is to any allegations of abuse against its citizens.

    Although America is a crap country in my opinion that I'd never want to visit, at least they don't bulldoze down people's houses and give them almost nothing in return. They don't round up the religious people they don't like, beat them to death, tell the families they killed themselves and then take their heart, lungs, liver and then cremate the body to hide any evidence.