Yahoo Asks US to Help Dissidents in China

Yahoo Inc. Chief Executive Jerry Yang wants U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to help get two Chinese journalists out of prison - where they've been since Yahoo complied with Chinese investigators.

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.

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.

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.

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