Reporters Without Borders,the Paris-based press freedom watchdog,accused Yahoo,the US internet portal,or helping Chinese authorities catch and prosecute a journalist convicted of leaking state secrets.
The allegation highlights sensitivities about the role of international companies in China.The internet market there is booming but the Communist government maintains strict controls on online activity and often imposes harsh penalties on critics and dissidents.
Yahoo officials in Beijing,Hong Kong and the US declined to address directly the accusation,which came less than a month after the company announced it would invest more than $ 1 bn in Alibaba,the Chinese e-commerce website.
In a statement Yahoo said "Just like any other global company,Yahoo must ensure that its local country sites operate within the laws,regulations and customs of the country in which they are based."
Reporters Without Borders said the text of the court verdict on journalist Shi Tao shows that Yahoo helped authorities track him down,using the internet address from which he accessed his Yahoo's e-mail.
Mr Shi was sentenced to 10 years in prison in April for leaking state secrets,a vaguely defined charge often used against critics of the government.Overseas Chinese websites have said that ,in Mr Shi's case,the state secret was a copy of an order from the Communist party's propaganda department for tighter controls about hte anniversary of the June 4 1989 crack down on demonstrators in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.
Reporters Without Border said in a statement ; " Information supplied by Yahoo led to the conviction of a good journalist who was paid dearly for trying to get the news out.It is one thing to turn a blind eye to the Chinese government's abuses and it is quite another thing to collaborate "
Yahoo rivals Google and MSN,the online arm of Microsoft,have also been accused of being overly willing to assist efforts by the Chinese government to control the internet.It revealed in June that MSN had banned the words "freedom" and " democracy" from parts of its new Chinese website,saying they were " forbidden speech".
Google has been criticised for tailoring the results of its Chinese search service to exclude website that are blocked by the government.Google says it has done so because local users can not access those sites.
The US government assumed controversial new powers to search private e-mail and other internal activity in the wake of the September 11 attacks.The Patriot Act,passed in response to the attacks,requires internet companies to hand over information provided the request is backed by court order,and prevents them from notifying the customer concerned.
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