Chen Shui-bian, President of Taiwan, urged multinational companies to put freedom of speech before profit when dealing with China. The President singled out Yahoo and Google by name. It was at a commemorative service for a Taiwanese human rights activist. Chen said there shouldn’t be any compromise in the fight for free speech.

“I call on China’s communist regime and on multinational corporations - which do not refrain from sacrificing freedom of speech for commercial profit, like the well-known Yahoo and Google - to respect freedom and democracy, because that is the right way to continuous development,” Chen said.

Representatives for Yahoo and Google in Taiwan were unavailable for comment today.

Chen’s criticism of the two companies came a week after a Hong Kong lawmaker alleged that evidence used to convict a Chinese reporter sentenced to 10 years in prison for leaking state secrets had come from Yahoo Inc.’s Hong Kong arm.

Google Inc. has also come under heavy criticism outside China over a Web site that filters searches for material deemed subversive or politically sensitive by the country’s government.

via the hindu