Beijing to evict 1.5 million for Olympics: group

By Lindsay Beck

BEIJING (Reuters) - Some 1.5 million residents of Beijing will be displaced by the time it hosts the 2008 Olympics, many of them evicted against their will, a rights group said on Tuesday, prompting a sharp denial by China.

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 characterized 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 organizing committee and China's Foreign Ministry said the report was groundless and the figures vastly inflated, with only 6,037 people displaced since 2002 for the construction of Olympic stadiums.

"During the process, the citizens have had their compensation property settled. No single person was forced to move out of Beijing," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told a regular news conference.

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