Beijing's bid for and preparation of the 2008 Summer Olympics accelerated a wave of demolition and redevelopment across the city, clearing old hutong neighbourhoods and other housing for venues, roads, 'beautification' and commercial projects. COHRE estimated that about 1.5 million people were displaced between 2000 and 2008, more than twice the annual rate of the 1990s, and reported that many were coerced into accepting compensation below market value, given little notice, harassed by demolition companies and resettled far from work and schools; China's Foreign Ministry put those displaced by Olympic preparations at 6,037 families and rejected COHRE's figures. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch documented the imprisonment of residents who resisted, including Ye Guozhu, sentenced to four years after seeking to protest evictions and reportedly tortured in custody, and the housing-rights lawyer Ni Yulan, who was beaten. In the months before the Games authorities also ordered tens of thousands of migrant recyclers, beggars and petitioners out of the city, according to Human Rights Watch. Unlike most entries in the atlas, the bulk of this displacement took the form of compensated, if often coerced, urban redevelopment rather than expulsion by force, and the share that amounted to forced eviction is unknown.
The Beijing municipal government, district authorities and affiliated developers demolished housing and relocated residents for Olympic venues, infrastructure and city redevelopment, at times by coercion
No significant death toll is associated with the evictions; the documented harms are loss of housing, inadequate compensation, harassment, beatings and imprisonment of residents and activists who resisted.
COHRE documented demolitions without due process and harassment of residents, and Amnesty International documented the imprisonment of the eviction protester Ye Guozhu and his reported torture in custody.
China