Beijing Games fuelling forced evictions -group

BEIJING, June 5 (Reuters) Some 1.5 million residents of Beijing will be displaced by the time the city hosts the 2008 Olympics, many of them evicted from their homes against their will, a housing rights group said today.

The Geneva-based Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) said residents were often forced from their homes with little notice and little compensation, as the government embarks on a massive city redevelopment to accommodate the Games.

''In Beijing, and in China more generally, the process of demolition and eviction is characterised by arbitrariness and lack of due process,'' the group said in a report.

After demolition, inhabitants were often ''forced to relocate far from their communities and workplaces, with inadequate transportation networks adding significantly to their cost of living,'' the group said.

Beijing's Olympic organising committee had no immediate comment on the report.

Across China, battles between residents and property developers have become commonplace as breakneck development swallows up swathes of rural land and as cities raze sections to make way for skyscrapers and shopping malls.

LIVELIHOODS LOST Recourse to adequate compensation varied widely, the housing rights watchdog said, adding that those who suffer a significant decline in their living conditions as a result of their relocation could be as high as 20 per cent.

''As soon as you are evicted, you lose part of your livelihood,'' the group cited one resident as saying.

In one neighbourhood, many who were relocated complained that even if they received compensation they could not afford to pay management fees and unsubsidised electricity and water charges.

The break-up of their communities when they were displaced also meant they lacked the social networks that could offer them assistance in their new neighbourhoods.

While dislocations were common among cities around the world hosting major events, the group noted that in China, where the Communist Party keeps a tight rein on dissent, there was only a limited role for the media or grassroots groups to publicise abuses or advocate change.

Residents who spoke to COHRE's researchers also alleged corruption on the part of local governments, which they said accepted illegal payments from developers.

The group noted several cases of housing rights lawyers and activists who were imprisoned, including Ye Guozhu, who was sentenced to four years in jail in December 2004 for organising protests against forced evictions.

Particularly vulnerable to abuses were Beijing's population of poor, rural migrants, who often live in urban villages on the city's outskirts.

''Victims of forced evictions, their legal representatives and housing rights defenders who oppose or challenge evictions are subject to ongoing intimidation, harassment and, in some instances, imprisonment for their activism,'' the group said.

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