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Respect people's rights and lives

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-04-02 06:34

Local governments have been demolishing more old buildings especially in cities to hand over the plots to developers and earn huge amounts, even though it has resulted in the loss of lives and property of residents. This is being done to beat the new urban housing demolition regulation that comes into effect soon, says an article in Beijing Times. Excerpts:

A farmer died and his father was seriously injured when a demolition squad ignored their protests and razed their pig farm in Jiangsu province on Sunday. And at the beginning of the month, an elderly woman was "buried alive" during a forced demolition in Hubei province.

These bloody facts show we are still far from adopting harmonious demolition and relocation methods. It may be easy to promulgate new urban housing demolition regulations but very hard to regulate demolition practices because some local officials disregard people's rights and interests, and unleash violence to get their way.

The two extreme cases show how seriously people's rights are being violated. People's life is most precious and should be the "red line" between public power and private rights. But some officials who wield "public power" consider themselves as supreme and violate laws.

The helpless residents of houses earmarked for demolition or already demolished may have no choice but to die to defend their dignity and rights, but the more such deaths and loss of property occur, the more agitated people will become. The more agitated they become, the more social conflicts will emerge threatening the country's journey toward harmonious society.

(China Daily 04/02/2010 page9)