State Persecution

The Chinese authorities, who last month unexpectedly dropped a state secrets case against a jailed researcher for The New York Times, have started an investigation period that could lead to reinstating the charges against him by early May, his lawyer said Monday. The possibility of resuming the case undercuts speculation that withdrawal of the case last month was intended as a prelude to releasing...

Jerry Yang, one of the co-founders of Internet giant Yahoo, defended the Internet search engine's cooperation with the Chinese government's censorship of the Web, saying it was necessary to reach out to new users, an AFP report said. The report said lawmakers had accused tech giants Yahoo, Google and Microsoft of helping sustain the so-called "Great Firewall of China," which blocked searches of...

China has agreed to drop charges against a Chinese journalist who worked as a researcher for the New York Times. Zhao Yan, jailed since October 2004 after his arrest on charges of fraud and illegally releasing state secrets, is likely to be released soon. Zhao’s case was threatening to overshadow Chinese President Hu Jintao’s forthcoming visit to the United States. Hu is expected to make his first...

Two journalists were charged with exposing German state secrets on al Qaeda's frontman in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in a case their defenders called a blow to press freedom. Prosecutors in the city of Potsdam, near Berlin, said on Wednesday they were pursuing a case against German reporter Bruno Schirra and the foreign editor of Swiss newspaper Sonntagsblick, Johannes von Dohnanyi, over an...

The trial of a Chinese researcher charged with exposing state secrets while working for the New York Times is expected before the end of March, his lawyer said on Wednesday. Zhao Yan worked for the paper before his arrest in September 2004. He faces 10 years in jail or more after security officials charged him with telling the paper details of rivalry between China’s outgoing Communist Party...

The giants of the Internet have been hauled up and accused of colluding with China's secret police and censors to wield a "cyber sledgehammer of repression". At a hearing of the US House international relations subcommittee, Yahoo, Cisco Systems, Microsoft and Google were repeatedly accused of collusion with an oppressive regime, and of selling out the principles of democracy and free speech for...

The US Congress has condemned major IT firms for helping China censor the internet. In China, web forums are carrying angry comments. Members of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus said that Microsoft, Google, Cisco, Yahoo were putting profits before the principle of free speech. "With all their power and influence, wealth and high visibility, they neglected to commit to the kind of positive...

The chief prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, has decided to withdraw the indictments against three Croatian journalists charged with contempt. She says that “in the interest of justice and judicial economy” she’s chosen not to proceed against Stjepan Seselj, Domagoj Margetic and Marijan Krizic, who had been all charged in connection with revealing the identity, statement and testimony of a protected...

The big story in Europe before Christmas was that the CIA operated clandestine prisons in eight European countries where it was questioning Al-Qaeda suspects and secretly flew the prisoners through European air space. Condoleezza Rice basically confirmed to European governments there had been clandestine flights, but "What prisons?" and the host governments named said, "No way." So it comes as a...

ZAGREB - A Croatian journalist charged by the UN war crimes tribunal with contempt of court has defied it by publishing the secret testimony of a protected witness on the Internet, reports said on January 12. Domagoj Margetic put out on his personal website what appeared to be testimony by Croatian President Stipe Mesic during the 1997 trial of former Bosnian Croat general Tihomir Blaskic, the...