HK Court Backs Project Hope Over LibelAn official with the China Youth Development Foundation (CYDF) said on June 21 that Project Hope has been vindicated, after the Hong Kong High Court found a local weekly magazine guilty of defaming the project yesterday.Xu Yongguang, secretary-general of the CYDF, said the article, published by Next magazine on January 21, 1994, damaged the reputation of the foundation with its insinuation that the foundation had misappropriated 70 million yuan (about 8.4 U.S. dollars), and caused the charity to lose a large amount of donations from Hong Kong that year. Judge Andrew Chung said yesterday that the article in Next magazine was malicious. He awarded 3.5 million Hong Kong dollars (about 500,000 U.S. dollars) to the non-profit foundation. Xu said at a press conference that though his foundation is not totally satisfied with the compensation, it highly respects the fairness of Hong Kong's law and will not appeal to a higher court. He added, "We sincerely welcome the media to keep a watch on us. " The foundation's counsel read a statement that no organizations or individuals unauthorized by the foundation are allowed to collect or handle donations for Project Hope. Project Hope, launched by the CYDF in 1989, has helped nearly 2. 3 million dropouts return to school and established more than 7, 800 Hope schools around China. One-third of its money comes from Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and overseas Chinese. |
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