More Chinese Dissidents Claim Harm by Yahoo

As if Microsoft’s takeover bid wasn’t enough, Yahoo now faces two more lawsuits from Chinese dissidents. In November Yahoo settled with the families of journalists Wang Xiaoning and Shi Tao, who were jailed on information provided by Yahoo China.

Zheng Cunzhu and Guo Quan filed the suits in federal court in California, although neither has been arrested by Chinese authorities.

Business Interests Lost

Zheng alleges he lost control of his business investments in China that included factories and a trading company. He was a member of the China Democracy Party, as was dissident Li Zhi, and Zheng moved to the U.S. in early 2006 after Li Zhi’s arrest on information provided by Yahoo.

Since Zheng used a Yahoo e-mail account to join the CDP, he was afraid to return to China and lost “the real control of the two factories, and his investment and property were under danger of being defrauded by others,” his suit says.

Guo Quan, on the other hand, isn’t complaining about Yahoo’s e-mail policies. Guo, a former associate professor at Nanjing Normal University, lost his job after calling on Chinese leaders to allow multiparty democracy. Guo complains that Yahoo blocked his name and his company’s name from the Internet — or as much of it as is available in China.

Aiding Torture

Li Zhi is also part of the suit, which claims that at least 60 other people were “arbitrarily imprisoned” in China for advocating free elections, democracy and human rights, and they were possibly identified when Yahoo turned over user information. Li has served four years of an eight-year sentence for working on behalf of the CDP.

“By providing Internet user identification information to the People’s Republic of China, [the] Defendants knowingly and willfully aided and abetted in the commission of torture and other major abuses violating international law that caused Plaintiffs severe…