A writer’s group has announced that Shi Tao had been released on 23 August, 15 months before the end of his sentence.He was the Chinese journalist who was jailed after Yahoo disclosed details of his email has been released in 2005.However,there was no indication why Shi was released earlier.
Actually he disclosed the secrets of the government in 2004 and was sentenced to prison in the following year. He had sent details of a government memo about restrictions on news coverage of the Tiananmen Square massacre anniversary to a human rights forum in the United States.
Yahoo faced much criticism from the Human rights activists and US legislators for disclosing details of Shi’s email to the Chinese government, leading to his conviction.Although, in November 2007 the company’s chief executive, Jerry Yang, apologised to Shi’s family.
In 2007 the World Association of Newspapers gave Shi its Golden Pen of Freedom award.