French court asks China to investigate as part of Falun Gong lawsuits
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A French court has asked China to investigate allegations of torture and repression made in two complaints filed by two Falun Gong practitioners, which has been banned by Beijing, a lawyer said.
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(InfoWorld) - A Chinese journalist jailed in part due to e-mail evidence provided by a Yahoo subsidiary plans to file a lawsuit in the U.S. against the Internet company within the next few months. "We're also trying to line up other victims for a class-action. We've been in touch with a few others, but we haven't signed anyone up yet. It's a very sensitive issue because there could be reprisals against their families," said Albert Ho, a legislator in Hong Kong and lawyer in the case, in a telephone interview. A Yahoo spokeswoman in Hong Kong could not be reached for comment. A U.S.Â civil suit against YahooÂ on behalf of Shi Tao, a Chinese journalist convicted of "divulging state secrets" by Beijing in partÂ due to an e-mail Yahoo providedÂ to Chinese authorities, will likely be filed in either New York or California, Ho said. Tao's e-mail, sent from a Yahoo account in April, 2004 to a pro-China democracy Web site in New York, contained a Beijing order for officials to be on guard for unrest and dissident activity ahead of the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Tao was sentenced to 10 years in prison. The new lawsuit would come just months after Ho filed a complaint to Hong Kong authorities against Yahoo Holdings (Hong Kong) on behalf of Tao. It also comes at a time whenÂ international pressure is increasingÂ on Internet companies to handle the private data of their users more carefully, particularly with respect to human rights. Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders have both criticized Yahoo over the Tao incident, and a group of U.S. lawmakersÂ blasted a group of Internet companiesÂ earlier this year, including Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, and Cisco Systems, for failing to uphold free expression in China. "Internet companies should not disclose personal information that could violate the basic human rights of their users," Ho said. He said Tao, who is not a U.S. citizen, could file a lawsuit in the country under the Alien Tort Claims Act of 1789. The group has not yet decided on a U.S. law firm to retain for the case, nor would Ho divulge the specific strategy or damages the group intends to seek. The Hong Kong case remains pending because an investigation by authorities has not been finished yet, Ho said. Yahoo could face a fine, a civil lawsuit, or both if Hong Kong's Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data rules that it illegally divulged personal data used to put Tao in jail. The plaintiffs argue that Yahoo Hong Kong had no right to comply with a request from China for Tao's personal data, and requested that the office investigate the matter. Yahoo has denied any involvement in the case by its Hong Kong arm. The company has said any information provided to Chinese authorities in this case would have come from Yahoo's operations in China, rather than Hong Kong. However, Yahoo's Chinese and Hong Kong operations were both part of the same corporate entity, Yahoo Hong Kong, at that time In 2005, Alibaba.com acquired Yahoo's Chinese operations as part of a deal that saw Yahoo take a stake in the Chinese Internet company.
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French prosecutors said Monday they were  opening a judicial investigation into comments by a leading  far-right politician who questioned whether the Nazis used gas  chambers in the Holocaust.
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China upheld convictions on Friday in two high-profile political cases, highlighting the Communist Party's intent to contain dissent in the face of criticism from rights groups and foreign governments.
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Chinese officials have called for Western countries to sign extradition treaties, the China Daily reported on Monday, saying the country's use of the death penalty was no reason to avoid repatriating criminals.
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French President Jacques Chirac will bring up human rights issues during a forthcoming trip to Beijing, aides said Saturday, but will do so "discreetly." They said that when he meets Chinese leaders next week, ...
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(!!!!!!!) Add them in yourself Yahoo! has asked a US court to dismiss a lawsuit accusing it of "aiding and abetting" acts of torture and other human rights abuses against Chinese dissidents. The company handed over information about its users to the Chinese government, which led to the arrests of the dissidents.â¦
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(InfoWorld) - Yahoo wants a California court to dismissÂ a lawsuit brought against the company by jailed Chinese dissidents. In a filing Monday, Yahoo told the court that the lawsuit, which seeks to hold Yahoo accountable for the imprisonment and torture of the plaintiffs, should be tossed out various reasons, among which being that the U.S. justice system is the wrong venue for the case. "This is a lawsuit by citizens of China imprisoned for using the internet in China to express political views in violation of China law. It is a political case challenging the laws and actions of the Chinese government. It has no place in the American courts," the 51-page filing reads. After stating that Yahoo "deeply sympathizes with the plaintiffs and their families and does not condone the suppression of their rights and liberty by their government," the company states that it and its Chinese subsidiaries must comply with the laws of China. "Yahoo has no control over the sovereign government of the People's Republic of China, the laws it passes, and the manner in which it enforces its laws," reads the filing. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the California Northern District in April, alleges that Yahoo and Yahoo Hong Kong violated a series of U.S. and international laws by providing information to the Chinese government that led to the plaintiffs' arrest and torture. Yahoo's arguments for dismissal are flawed, said attorney Morton Sklar, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based World Organization for Human Rights USA, which represents the plaintiffs, including imprisoned journalists Shi Tao and Wang Xiaoning. Yahoo is trying to blame China's government and arguing that Yahoo can't be held responsible for what has happened, Sklar said. "It was Yahoo that put the torture device in the hands of the government of China by giving the Internet identification information to the Chinese officials," Sklar said. "If they hadn't done that, there couldn't have been any torture abuses." While it's true that any U.S. corporation doing business in a foreign country has to comply with that country's laws, the corporation also has to comply with U.S. laws and international legal standards, Sklar said. "That's what Yahoo overlooked," he said. This case is but one of a series of human rights and free speech controversies in which U.S. Internet companies like Yahoo, Google, and MicrosoftÂ find themselves in regarding their operations in China. In addition to human rights groups and press watchdog organizations, these Internet companies have been criticized by U.S. lawmakers, by some of their own investors and by individuals. While Yahoo, Microsoft, Google and others in their position argue they need to comply with local laws, they also say that real progress on Internet issues of privacy, censorship, and human rights require government-to-government agreements supported by collaboration with industry players and human-rights organizations and leading to global standards of operation. Asked for comment about its dismissal request, a Yahoo spokeswoman said that while Yahoo believes "deeply" in human rights and "strongly" supports freedom of expression and privacy worldwide, it believes the case has no legal merits. "This is a political and diplomatic issue, not a legal one," she wrote. "The real issue here is the plaintiffs' outrage at the behavior and laws of the Chinese government. The U.S. court system is not the forum for addressing these political concerns." In its filing Monday, Yahoo outlines several reasons for the dismissal of the case. It argues that litigating the case "risks violating international law principles of sovereignty, interfering with U.S. foreign policy, and jeopardizing the U.S. law enforcement interests." Yahoo also argues that the plaintiffs have failed to state a claim under the Alien Tort Statute, the Torture Victim Protection Act, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), and the California laws on which they rely. Moreover, the plaintiffs' claims contravene federal, California, and international law, which protect defendants from civil liability for communicating with law enforcement officials regarding investigations, according to Yahoo. In their amended complaint, filed July 30, the plaintiffs allege Yahoo and Yahoo Hong Kong violated a series of U.S. and international laws, including torture, arbitrary arrest, prolonged detention, and forced labor as a violation of the international Alien Tort Statute and the Torture Victim Protection Act. They also allege violation of the California Business and Professional Code for unfair business practices and violation of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act for unlawful access to stored communications. The plaintiffs seek, among other things, awards of a variety of damages; declaration that defendants violated international law; a requirement that defendants actively help to secure the release of detained plaintiffs; and an injunction barring the defendants from "any further disclosures of user information" to prevent future abuses. The complaint states that Wang Xiaoning was arrested and unlawfully and arbitrarily detained and prosecuted for publishing and circulating through the Internet electronic journals and articles that supported democratic reform in China and for communicating with other democracy advocates. "He is serving a ten-year sentence at Beijing Municipal No. 2 Prison, a forced labor prison for political prisoners, under severe conditions of prolonged confinement that are highly abusive in nature. He has served almost four years of his ten-year sentence, and has been imprisoned for almost five years," the complaint reads. Meanwhile, Shi Tao was arrested and unlawfully and arbitrarily detained and prosecuted for e-mailing messages, notes, and journalistic dispatches describing government restrictions on journalists imposed in connection with the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown on democracy advocates, according to the complaint. "He currently is serving the third year of a 10-year sentence for 'divulging state secrets abroad' at Chishan Prison of Hunan Province, a high-security prison with a documented system of forced labor and torture, and has been in detention for almost four years," the complaint reads. Their arrests and detainment of these two Chinese citizens were "inflicted upon" them as a result of Yahoo and Yahoo Hong Kong's actions to aid and abet Chinese government officials "in committing these major human rights abuses," the complaint reads. The judge will hold a hearing on Yahoo's dismissal request on November 1st at 2 p.m. Pacific Time.
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The web giant argues out of both sides of its web portal in trying to get a lawsuit by Chinese dissidents dismissed. Two years ago, the company took the opposite side in a dispute over the online auctioning of Nazi paraphernalia in France.
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France on Monday called for an international inquiry into a deadly blast in Beirut that claimed the life of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri, President Jacques Chirac's office said in a statement.
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A French engineering student who was expelled from Syria on suspicion of trying to join Islamists fighting U.S. forces in Iraq has been placed under formal French judicial investigation, a judicial source said on Friday.
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China faces calls to reassess its suppression of the 1989 student protests after purged leader Zhao Ziyang dies.
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A French engineering student who was  expelled from Syria on suspicion of trying to join Islamists  fighting U.S. forces in Iraq has been placed under formal  French judicial investigation, a judicial source said on  Friday.
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A Chinese company has taken Google's China operations to court over what it says is an infringement of the Chinese translation of its name, "Guge," according to court documents.
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The Government of the Ivory Coast is planning to take legal action against French troops accused of shooting civilians. The Ivorian Government is taking its case to the International Court of Justice.
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The company says a suit over its cooperation with Chinese authorities is really something that should be sorted out in China.
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France have lodged a protest with the International Tennis Federation (ITF) over a dope-testing irregularity by the Chinese team during their Fed Cup tie in Beijing earlier this month.