Hi. Did you know that me, being able to sit here and write whatever I want, and you, being able to sit there and read it, is a freedom? I’m sure most of you know that already, because you’ve sat through History class and you know about our various freedoms from the Bill of Rights. Or if you’re in another country besides the US, you probably have your own freedoms if you’re able to read this.
But right now, in China, you can’t read or write just anything you want. China PROMISED that before the Olympics they would clean up their act. They would stop punishing and imprisoning peaceful dissidents. But instead of following-through on that promise, they’ve instead imprisoned more people, including journalist Shi Tao.
Do you know who lead the Chinese government to Shi Tao? Yahoo! did, by turning over information to their government, just to protect their relations with China.
What can you do to stand up against Human Rights Violations, such as Shi Tao’s 10 year prison sentence for sending an e-mail?
You can urge your U.S. representatives (local and state) to put pressure on the Chinese government to release Shi Tao and others who have been wrongfully imprisoned for speaking their minds.
Secondly, you can e-mail Yahoo! and call for them to be more responsible with users’ data and privacy. They should not have released Shi Tao’s information to the Chinese government. Yahoo is based in the U.S., with locations around the world. There is no reason why they should have to give up data on servers that were probably located on U.S. soil.
Finally, you can post on your own blog about Human Rights violations around the world, there’s still time today to join Bloggers Unite for Human Rights, on May 15th, 2008.