(Bloomberg) -- The Verizon Communications Inc. subsidiary that acquired Yahoo! Inc. in 2017 was sued in the U.S. by a Chinese activist over an alleged secret pact between Beijing and former Yahoo executives that led to the torture of dissidents.
Ning Xianhua, a survivor of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, says in a complaint filed Wednesday that years later he continued his activism by using a Yahoo email account to “privately spread pro-democracy messages and publications,” believing the American company's services offered him and other activists security.
But Yahoo had cut a deal with Chinese officials to hand over the emails of pro-democracy dissidents in exchange for access to the vast Chinese market, Ning alleges in the lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Jose, California.
Verizon declined to comment.
The suit says former Yahoo executives struck a deal with China's communist regime to hand over the emails of activists, including messages between U.S. residents and Ning, who says he was captured, imprisoned and tortured.
Ning was released and escaped in 2016 to the U.S., where he has received asylum. He lives in New York.
“The documented collusion between a U.S. company and a communist regime is appalling, and the resulting torture of Chinese citizens is gut-wrenching,” Mark Lanier, an attorney for Ning, said in a statement. “We have a respected, global corporation knowingly condoning these violations, all in the name of corporate profits.”
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