Tag: farmers

China wants to rebuild countryside but first must demolish homes
China

China wants to rebuild countryside but first must demolish homes

Over the last several decades, China's population has shifted to cities as its economy expanded. However, more than 40 per cent of its people still continue to live in its countryside. And now, China's Communist Party wants to modernize rural villages by rebuilding them completely.An ordinary farmer from Shandong province along China's east coast, Mr. Liu, witnessed his home in a village near the city of Heze being demolished in January this year.“To demolish my home, about 100 security officers surrounded and subdued me and detained me,” he said.He then called the police. They beat and detained him. Mr Liu has asked to use only his last name because he fears local officials could physically hurt him again.Mr. Liu's village is one of thousands being torn down as China's countryside undergo
China targets land grabs, forced evictions in new law
Business, China

China targets land grabs, forced evictions in new law

Farmers in China have faced forced evictions and illicit land grabs for decades often with little or no compensation in return as China raced to urbanize and settle social unrest in the country.Millions of hectares of rural land were taken away from farmers in the past three decades and given to developers. Rural migrants living in run-down inner-city areas have also been forcefully evicted in recent years as cities fight congestion."Land disputes trigger half of an estimated 100,000 social protests in China every year, making them the second leading cause for public unrest after labour disputes," Ni Yulan, a lawyer who advocates for property rights of low-income families in Beijing said.Ni has been jailed twice for her advocacy and is paralyzed from the waist down, a result she says of be...