Shameful....

I wish this wasn't true, but I suspect that it is...

Yahoo, the American internet firm, was accused yesterday of helping China's state security police track down and jail a dissident.

Reporters Without Borders (RWB), a media pressure group, said it had learned that Yahoo was approached over the case of Shi Tao, a Chinese journalist.

Mr Shi, 37, had posted on the internet a copy of an internal Chinese government document banning media comment on the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre last year.

Yahoo Hong Kong provided the investigators with information which enabled them to track down Mr Shi's email and internet details, according to RWB.

He was jailed for 10 years in April for "leaking state secrets", a charge often used to suggest that dissidents, human rights activists, and even lawyers who make contact with overseas organisations, are spies.