Forced evictions sour Olympic dream for some

By Ben Blanchard

BEIJING (Reuters) - Yu Pingju has little Olympic cheer. If the government carries through its threats and demolishes her house as part of city beautification efforts, she may have to watch the Beijing Games on the street.

With less than a month to go before the Games start, forced evictions to make way for Olympic venues and other projects to spruce up China's grimy capital are making life miserable for people like Yu, even as the government denies there is a problem.

"We support the Olympics with all our hearts," Yu told Reuters, sitting in her house which has been decked out with Chinese and Olympic flags and pictures of President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, who she hopes will intervene on her behalf.

"But they are using the Olympics as an excuse to get rid of us and build expensive offices," she added. "They say we'll affect the Olympic torch, which is supposed to pass in front of here. How could that be? What have we done wrong?

"We have nowhere else to go. We'll have to sleep on the streets if our house is demolished," she said.

Human rights groups have repeatedly expressed concern about the issue, and say Beijing is not living up to its promises that the Olympics will improve the country's rights record, nor that it will be the much-vaunted "People's Olympics".

The Geneva-based Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions estimates that 1.5 million people have been moved to make way for Olympic projects and the massive makeover Beijing has had for the Games. It has come at a price, the group says.

"Beijing promised that through the Games they would improve human rights for the citizens. I think that human rights abuses have continued and in fact worsened in many cases," the group's senior research officer, Deanna Fowler, told Reuters.