Newspaper fined for revealing AIDS orphan's identity
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2006-07-18 16:34
A Beijing court ordered a local newspaper on Monday to pay compensation and
make an apology to a young woman orphaned by AIDS for revealing her identity.
Beijing Chaoyang District Court ordered the local China Times to pay the
19-year-old woman 20,000 yuan and issue an apology on its front page for a
report published last December.
The report written by a journalist surnamed Hu carried three photos of the
woman and the story of her sufferings after her parents, who contracted AIDS
after selling blood, died earlier this decade.
Hu was accused of violating the young woman's privacy and damaging her
reputation as the photos clearly revealed her face and carried her real name.
Although the daily was not the first to report the woman's story, Hu never
interviewed the young woman and he bought her photos from a website. His story
was scalped from other news reports and the woman's own anonymous writings on
the Internet.
His later insistence that he had done nothing improper outraged Jin Wei, an
AIDS activist who supported the woman's education.
After her identity was revealed the young woman's grads dropped sharply and
she lost confidence in herself, said Jin.
Jin filed a lawsuit against China Times in March when government regulations
on the prevention and control of AIDS came into effect. The 39th article
stipulates that no institution or individual are allowed to make public the
names of people who are HIV/AIDS positive or their relatives.
China has an estimated 650,000 people with HIV/AIDS and discrimination
against such people is still widespread.
China Times argued that it published the story to raise awareness of AIDS and
did not intend to violate the woman's privacy.
According to the court, the newspaper report could negatively affect the
19-year-old's future and the report was unethical.
Jin Wei said the young woman was happy with the verdict but thought the
compensation was low. China Times said it would not appeal.
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