Shi Tao

Shi Tao (; born July 25, 1968) is a Chinese journalist, writer and poet, who in 2005 was sentenced to 10 years in prison for releasing a document of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to an overseas Chinese democracy site. Yahoo! China was later discovered to have facilitated his arrest by providing his personal details to the Chinese government. Yahoo! was subsequently rebuked by a panel of the U.S. Congress, settled a lawsuit by Shi's family out of court, and pledged to reform its practices.

Shi won two major international journalism awards after his arrest: the CPJ International Press Freedom Award and the Golden Pen of Freedom Award. On September 5, 2013, Shi Tao was released from prison. He received an 18-month reduction in sentencing after spending years in prison. He lives in Yinchuan, Ningxia, with his mother.

Background Shi Tao was born in Yanchi County, Wuzhong, Ningxia, in China in 1968. In July 1991, he received a degree from Shanghai's East China Normal University. He married the following year. Prior to his arrest, Shi was an editor at Dangdai Shang Bao ("Contemporary Trade News"), a newspaper in Changsha, in Hunan Province. During Shi's trial, his lawyer contended that his punishment should be light as the disclosure of the information had not caused great harm to China. In June, he was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment by the Changsha Intermediate People's Court.

Shi's appeal to the Hunan Province High People's Court was rejected without a hearing. Shi's mother Gao Qinsheng filed a request for a review of the appeal on his behalf in August 2005. Shi's imprisonment was also protested by several international NGOs. Amnesty International designated him a prisoner of conscience and called for his immediate release. The Congressional-Executive Commission on China describes him as a political prisoner. Reporters Without Borders launched a petition calling for his release, while the Committee to Protect Journalists described itself as "outraged" by the arrest. Human Rights Watch called him an imprisoned "human rights defender" and campaigned for his release.

Yahoo!'s role The incident sparked a controversy about the business practices of Yahoo!, the Hong Kong arm of which provided technical information connecting the message and email account with Shi Tao's computer. Yahoo! was criticized by Reporters Without Borders for acting as a "police informant". Yahoo! was first called to testify about the incident to the House Foreign Affairs Committee of the United States Congress in 2006. with Yahoo! co-founder Jerry Yang testifying in another hearing before Congress. Chairman Tom Lantos told Yang to "beg the forgiveness" of Shi's mother, who was attending the hearing, Representative Christopher H. Smith stated that there was a "parallel" between Yahoo's actions in the case and businesses that helped Nazi Germany locate Jews during the Holocaust. Yang apologized to Shi's mother and stated that he didn't think any Yahoo! employee "was trying to do anything wrong" and that the company was committed to "protecting and promoting free expression and privacy". He testified that the company was also collaborating with human rights organizations on an industry code of conduct to protect human rights. Yahoo! settled out of court for an undisclosed sum.

Prior to a trip by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to China in February 2008, Yang appealed to her to "actively pursue the release of Shi Tao, Wang Xiaoning and other Chinese dissidents who have been imprisoned for exercising internationally recognized rights of expression".

Awards and recognition On October 18, 2005, the Committee to Protect Journalists announced that Shi was one of four winners of the 2005 CPJ International Press Freedom Awards. The committee's website stated that he would be officially presented with the award when he is released from prison.

In March 2006, he was given the Vasyl Stus Award, named for the Ukrainian dissident and awarded for "talent and courage". The award was accepted on his behalf by his mother. In 2009, Human Rights Watch awarded Shi a Hellman/Hammett grant, which recognizes "commitment to free expression" and "courage in the face of political persecution".