Forced Eviction Chart

Congressional-Executive Commission on China

Selected Reports on Incidents Related to Forced Evictions, March 2003 – January 2005[1] 

(PDF Version)

Date of Incident	Site of Dispute:  (Urban/Local)	Source[2] & Date	Short Description of Incident
3/7/2003	Rural/Yangzhou	Southern Weekend 12/04/2003	A group of 13 land protestors who attempted to visit the Jining City municipal government were given 1-3 year sentences for disturbing the “public order.”
3/13/2003	Urban/Shanghai	HRIC 3/14/2003	The police detained 45 land protesters who were en route to Beijing from Shanghai to petition the central government.
5/1/2003	Urban/Shanghai	HRIC 5/1/2003	132 residents upset at being evicted from their homes in Shanghai protested in front of municipal government buildings.
6/11/2003	Urban/Beijing	AFP 6/12/2003	10 families evicted from their houses in Beijing protested near the International Trade Building.
6/18/2003	Urban/Shanghai	BBC VOA 6/15/2003	200 protestors gathered outside the Shanghai municipal government to protest unfair treatment in the sale of their housing.  Police detained 35 protestors.
8/19/2003	Urban/ Shanghai-Jingan District	SCMP 8/20/2003	A suit brought by Jingan District residents against property developer Zhou Zhengyi was rejected by the local district court. The suit alleged that the eviction of the residents from their homes had been unlawful.
8/20/2003	Rural/Shanxi	Ming Pao 8/21/2003	300 protestors attempted to travel to Xian to protest low compensation for their homes.
9/15/2003	Site of Original Dispute: Rural/Anhui Province- Rongcheng City Site of Self Immolation: Urban/Beijing	SCMP and Xinhua News 9/15/2003	Zhu Zhengliang, a 45-year-old peasant from Anhui, committed self-immolation to protest his forced eviction.
9/21/2003	Rural/ Hubei Province-Yichang City	Taiyang Pao 9/22/2003	An explosion at Yicheng’s Municipal Geological Dormitory results in 4 deaths and 26 injuries.  The explosion was triggered by an evicted resident. The resident died in the attack.
9/25/2003	Urban/Beijing	SCMP 9/26/2003	A resident upset over his impending eviction committed self-immolation in front of the property developer, injuring both.
9/29/2003	Site of Original Dispute:  Urban/Shanghai Site of Arrests: Urban/Beijing	SCMP 3/23/2003 HRIC 3/25/2003	The Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau detained protestors from Shanghai attempting to petition the central government over forced evictions.
10/1/2003	Urban/Beijing-Tiananmen Square	AFP 10/03/2003	A protestor jumped into the moat outside Tiananmen Gate to protest the forced eviction of his parents.
11/11/2003	Rural/Liaoning Province Shenyang City	Taiyang Pao 11/15/2003	One hundred demolition workers illegally tore down houses in a local village.
11/20/2003	Site of Original Dispute:  Urban/Shangdong Province-Qingdao City Site of Protest: Urban/ Beijing- Zhongnanhai Compound	AFP 11/20/2003	A group of 40 protesters from Qingdao sat in front of Zhongnanhai to protest their unlawful eviction.
11/25/2003	Urban/Guangdong – Province-Guangzhou	Xingdao News 11/26/2003	A group of 184 property owners protested the illegal re-mortgaging of their home by a property developer in Guangzhou.
12/10/2003	Rural/Zhejiang Province	FEER 12/10/2003	Farmers, angry over the seizure of their land, kidnapped local government officials in an industrial park, leading to a conflict with local police.
12/10/2003	Rural/Henan Province- Luohe City-Yuanhui District	AFP 12/12/2003	Four people were killed and seven others injured after police and protestors clashed on railroad tracks in central China’s Henan Province. Previously, on Dec. 11, nearly 1,000 residents blocked a railway line in Luohe City, Yuanhui District as 50 police officers tried to drag the demonstrators away.
12/10/2003	Site of Original Dispute: Rural/Henan Province Site of Self-Immolation:  Urban/Shanghai-Putuo District	AFP 12/12/2003	A disgruntled man in Shanghai attempted self-immolation in front of a fish market before being subdued by the local police.
12/27/2003	Rural/Guanxi Province- Beihai City	Boxun 1/6/2004	After four peasants were illegally detained for protesting the loss of their land, a group of peasants clashed with local police at the city’s municipal headquarters.
12/31/2003	Urban/Guangdong Province- Shenzhen	AFP 1/1/2004	Hundreds of homeowners from the Wanke Garden and other residential areas of Shenzhen’s Xiangmeipian District staged a demonstration in front of the office building of the Standing Committee of the Guangdong Provincial People’s Congress.  The protest was related to the Shenzhen Land Management Bureau’s plan to build an overpass on their land.
2/17/2004	Urban/Liaoning Province- Shenyang City	AFP 2/18/2004	A 43-year old man in Shenyang threatened to commit self- immolation over a property dispute with local government officials.
2/28/2004	Rural/Henan Province Fengqiu County	RFA 4/23/2004	A group of over 300 local officials attempted to force reluctant local farmers to relocate.  The farmers refused to leave on the grounds that compensation was too low.
3/6/2004	Urban/Beijing	AFP 3/6/2004	Citizens who had been filing protests related to property disputes were placed under house arrest in Beijing and Shanghai.
3/27/2004	Urban/ Chongqing City	AFP 3/31/2004	Nearly a thousand protesters in Chongqing protested the planned demolition of their homes.
4/26/2004	Site of Original Dispute: Rural/Tianjin Site of Protest: Beijing	RFA 4/26/2004	One hundred protestors from Tianjin traveled to Beijing to air concerns over unlawful evictions and to make other complaints.  The protestors were detained and beaten.
4/30/2004	Urban/Liaoning Province-Shenyang	CCTV 5/26/2004	A Shenyang native, angry at the low compensation offered for his house, protested by refusing to move out.
5/10/2004	Urban/Xian	Boxun 5/08/2004	Residents gathered in front of a local market to protest the illegal demolition of their houses.
5/15/2004	Urban/Nanjing	Xiandai Kuaibao  5/16/2004	A father and son were beaten in their home after they rejected the compensation proposal made by a local property developer.
5/20/2004	Urban/Beijing	Wen Hui Pao 5/19/2004	One hundred farmers were detained in central Beijing as they attempted to petition central government leaders.
5/21/2004	Urban/Guangdong Province- Shenzhen	BBC and Xinhua 5/21/2004	In two separate incidents, a total of 400 residents protested the demolition of their homes in front of the proposed site and then took a hostage.
5/27/2004	Urban/Xian	Boxun 6/14/2004	Local residents and representatives of a property developer fought after the developer tried to evict them from their homes.
5/30/2004	Urban/Shanxi Province-Xian	Huasheng   Paper 5/31/2004	An elderly woman was beaten after refusing to sell her house to property developers.
6/03/2004	Urban/Beijing	AFP 6/11/2004	In a series of two incidents on June 3, more than 1,000 farmers from five villages in the Yanta District on the outskirts of Xian demonstrated outside the Shaanxi Province Communist Party headquarters.
6/04/2004	Rural/Guangdong Province- Xinxing County	SCMP 6/4/2004	Three farmers were sentenced to prison for inciting a riot to attack local government buildings in a dispute over land seizures.
6/4/2004	Rural/Hunan Province- Jiahe County	Xinhua 6/04/2004	In order to proceed with a new development project, local officials in Jiahe County illegally evicted eleven families from their homes.
6/11/2004	Urban/Guangzhou-Baiyun District	Xinxi Shibao 6/12/2004	Protestors stood in front of their homes to keep city government workers from demolishing them.
6/15/2004	Rural/Xinjiang Province-Yili County	Asia Times 6/15/2004	Hundreds of farmers protested government attempts to build a dam on existing farmland.
6/16/2004	Rural/Sichuan Province- Zigong City	AFP/HRIC 6/18/2004	4,000 peasants signed a petition accusing local city officials of stealing their land and selling it to property developers.
06/19/2004	Urban/Guangdong Province- Shenzhen	Taiyang Pao 6/20/2004	More than 400 property owners from a housing estate at Longgang District in Shenzhen formed a human wall on the Shenzhen-Huizhou Highway to protest the cancellation of their land use certificates.
07/02/2004	Rural/Tangshan	HRIC 6/03/2004	11,283 residents of Tangshan wrote a letter to Premier Wen Jiabao asking for the dismissal of local government officials who had participated in improper land requisitions.
7/7/2004	Urban/Beijing	AFP 7/7/2004	Three hundred protestors gathered outside the Party’s investigation office to protest local land abuses.
7/8/2004	Urban/Beijing	AFP 7/8/2004	A group of 40 protestors were accosted outside of the Supreme People’s Protectorate in Beijing after calling for better treatment of land petitioners.
7/12/2004	Rural/Tianjin	AFP 7/12/2004	Several thousand protestors gathered in Tianjin to protest land corruption.
7/14/2004	Urban/Beijing	AFP 7/14/2004	50 to 60 protestors from northeast China threatened to commit suicide if their complaints about land transactions were not heard by the Supreme Court.
7/22/2004	Rural/Guangzhou Xiaoguwei Island	SCMP 7/22/2004