Yahoo Asks Condoleezza to Help Get Chinese Journos Out of Jail

Yang's request, faxed to Rice on Thursday morning, is the company's latest effort to undo damage set off when Yahoo cooperated with Chinese authorities and disclosed information about the online activities of the two journalists.

U.S. lawmakers and human rights advocates have accused it of collaborating with an oppressive regime and the Internet company recently settled a lawsuit with families of the journalists, who were each sentenced to 10-year prison terms for allegedly leaking state secrets and political writings.

Discussions on Human Rights

Yahoo also helped establish a human rights fund to provide humanitarian and legal aid to dissidents who have been imprisoned for expressing their views online.

Rice is leading a U.S. delegation to South Korea, China and Japan from Feb. 23-28. She is scheduled to meet with senior officials in all three countries to discuss stalled North Korean nuclear disarmament and other issues.

Those discussions will include human rights, said Nancy Beck, a State Department spokesperson. Beck would not confirm receipt of Yang's letter.

In the letter to Rice, Yang wrote that the company "deeply regrets the circumstances" that led to the jailing of the two journalists. He said it runs counter to company values.

"We know we have an important role to play in advocating for the release of these political dissidents; we are also aware of the limits of private American companies engaging in foreign policy," he wrote.

Moral Pygmies?

Yang called the State Department to take the lead and "actively pursue the release of Shi Tao, Wang Xiaoning and other Chinese dissidents who have been imprisoned for exercising internationally recognized rights of expression."

Since 2006, U.S. lawmakers have railed against the company for its role in the arrests.

"While technologically and financially you are giants, morally you are pygmies," the late California Democrat Tom Lantos, who was the House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman, said at a November 2007 hearing.

The House committee was probing previous testimony made by Yahoo General Counsel Michael Callahan, who initially said the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company had no information about the nature of China's investigation when it handed over information that ended up being used to convict Shi.

He acknowledged later that company officials had received a subpoena-like document that made reference to suspected "illegal provision of state secrets" -- a common charge against political dissidents.

Raising Questions

Shi was arrested at his home after posting material about a government crackdown on media and democracy activists on an overseas Web site.

Wang was sentenced in September 2003 on the charge of "incitement to subvert state power," a vaguely defined statute used to punish political critics. The Chinese government said Wang distributed pro-democracy articles written by him and others by e-mail and through Yahoo Groups, an online e-mail community.

In November, Yahoo settled a lawsuit with Shi, Wang and a family member who sued on their behalf. Neither side disclosed the settlement's details other than that the company could pay the attorneys fees and "provide financial, humanitarian and legal support to these families."

At the same time, Yahoo announced the human rights fund, which is being administered by human rights activist Harry Wu through his Laogai Research Foundation.

The case has raised questions about whether Internet companies, including Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) , should cooperate with governments that deny freedom of speech and frequently crack down on journalists.

In 2005, Yahoo bought a 40 percent stake in China's biggest online commerce firm, Alibaba.com, which runs Yahoo's mainland China operations.