Wang Xiaoning, a Yahoo user, jailed in China for promoting democracy online. Yahoo was referred to 10 times in the Chinese court verdict on September 12, 2003 that declared Wang guilty of "Incitement to subvert state power" and sentenced him to a decade in prison. Wang's wife Yu Ling filed a suit in federal court in San Francisco on April 18 against Yahoo for "aiding and abetting" torture and human rights violations by linking her husband and others to email and online comments.
The suit filed under the auspices of the US Alien Tort Statute and the Torture Victim Protection Act names Chinese Internet search engine Alibaba as a defendant along with Yahoo's operations in China and Hong Kong. (Source: IOLtechnology.com.za, Apr 19, 2007).