Publications

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Annual Report 2001

THE RIGHT TO HOUSING

The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) states that parties to the Covenant must afford the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living including adequate housing.¹ As this was ratified by China in 2001, this guarantee becomes binding on the PRC. However, in 2001 there were many instances of Tibetans being denied this right.

The concept of “adequate housing” includes seven major principles:

• legal security of tenure including legal protection against forced evictions;
• availability of services, materials and infrastructure including sustainable access to drinking water and energy;
• affordability, so that other basic needs are not compromised; where housing is constructed by the occupier, natural materials for construction must be inexpensive and available;
• habitability, with adequate space, safety and protection against cold, heat, rain, wind;
• accessibility for disadvantaged groups such as racial minorities, women, people with disabilities;
• location within reach of employment, health care, education facilities;
• cultural adequacy, in that the housing is suited to the lifestyle of the resident’s culture and allows the expression of cultural identity.²

In the year 2001 China committed several violations of the principle to provide adequate housing to Tibetans. The most glaring housing right violation was that of forced evictions and demolitions. Three other principles brought to the attention of TCHRD this year are the lack of housing infrastructure and materials in rural areas; discrimination against Tibetans in urban housing; and the cultural inappropriateness of housing being forced on Tibetans by the Chinese authorities.

Forced evictions

“Forced eviction” has been defined as “the permanent or temporary removal against their will of individuals, families and/or communities from their homes and/or land which they occupy, without the provision of, and access to, appropriate forms of legal or other protection.”⁴ Governments have an obligation to implement legislation which forbids such evictions, and they also have an obligation not to approve or implement such evictions themselves. When evictions do occur, the UN Commission on Human Rights has advised that governments must offer immediate, appropriate and sufficient compensation and/or alternative accommodation in consultation with the people who have been evicted.⁵

“Forced evictions” have repeatedly been declared by the United Nations to be a gross violation of human rights. The testimonies that TCHRD received this year from Tibetans who were evicted from their homes or their land revealed their deep distress and trauma. It is clear therefore that the right to be protected against such evictions is one of the most important elements of the right to adequate housing in the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.⁶

The PRC Constitution does not explicitly prohibit forced evictions. Citizens have the right to own and maintain property;⁷ the right not to have property expropriated by the State unless in the “public interest”;⁸ the right not to suffer unlawful intrusion into one’s home;⁹and the right to be compensated having suffered violations of their rights.¹⁰ In 2001 the Chinese government directly breached the human right against forced evictions and provisions of their own Constitution on several occasions. In addition, TCHRD received reports of several anticipated evictions.

Evictions from religious institutions

Before China’s occupation of Tibet in 1950, many Tibetans lived as monks, nuns or lay people in and around religious institutions. During the Cultural Revolution, however, the Chinese authorities destroyed thousands of religious institutions and the housing around them. In the early 1980s these destructions were halted by a more liberal PRC government. People slowly rebuilt the monasteries and moved back to live in the institutions or in encampments around them. Living quarters were built by the residents themselves from stones and wood. In Tibet now there are thousands of people living in and around such institutions; the institutions are their home and their community.

However, these communities are once again under threat. In the late 1990s — and particularly in the last two years — the Chinese authorities have returned to a more repressive policy towards Tibetan Buddhism.¹¹ The Chinese government’s current policy is “re-organisation” of Tibetan Buddhism, which sees “work teams” visiting religious institutions to inspect, and impose restrictions including a ceiling on the numbers of residents.¹² These ceilings result in evictions of those residents who are in excess of the limit. In 2001, two particularly shocking cases of mass forced evictions occurred in Karze “TAR”, Sichuan.

They said that we had to destroy our homes ourselves and if we didn’t, then the police would come and take our belongings

Two months later a similar mass-eviction and demolition occurred at Yachen Gar Monastery in Payul County, Sichuan. A public notice issued 1 September 2001 ordered the destruction of up to 800 living quarters by 15 September.¹⁶ The reason given was “for the better maintaining and managing of the monastery”. A nun from Yachen Gar who escaped into exile gave the following account of the evictions:

They said that we had to destroy our homes ourselves and if we didn’t, then the police would come and take our belongings. So most of the nuns wrecked their homes by pushing the mud walls in. We were all crying and sobbing but what else were we supposed to do? If we didn’t push the walls down ourselves they would beat us and take our belongings…We were afraid of being arrested if we did not destroy our home.¹⁷

Evictions for “development” projects

The United Nations Expert Seminar on Forced Evictions issued Guidelines on Development-Based Displacement in 1997.¹⁸ These guidelines relate to people who are evicted to make way for developments ranging from urban expansion programmes to infrastructure construction such as dams and railways. The guidelines apply equally to developments initiated by governments and those initiated by private companies. The guidelines entitle people to defend eviction in an independent court or tribunal; to be protected against violence or intimidation in the process of eviction; to be awarded appropriate compensation if their land or property is taken from them; and/or to be resettled in a location agreeable to them.¹⁹

This year the Beijing government announced the development of a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Toelung Dechen County, Lhasa.²⁰ This has consequences for the right to housing because it is likely that farmers in this county will need to be resettled to make way for the SEZ. Reports from Tibet say that Chinese investors have already begun land speculation in the Liuwu area.²¹Tibetan farmers and other local people in Toelung Dechen will inevitably require resettlement for the SEZ to be created.²² It is not known whether offers of compensation or alternative accommodation for these people have been made. A Tibetan former official, now living in exile, predicted that any protests against evictions resulting from this development will be dealt with severely, because “... if Tibetans oppose the railway station openly, they would be accused of being a ‘splittist’, as someone who wants to destroy the country.”²³

The SEZ is the first stage in an ambitious plan to quadruple the area of urban Lhasa from its current 53 sq km to 272 sq km by 2015.²⁴ Clearly other Tibetans will also be forced to relocate for the expansion of Lhasa. Once again, there have been no announcements of compensation or offers of alternative land or housing to those people who are displaced.

In 2001 several refugees told TCHRD that a new dam and powerhouse to be built on the Machu in the Malho “TAP” and Tsolho “TAP” areas will result in the forced resettlement of many nomad families.²⁵ Although exact numbers are not yet known, up to 1,000 people could be affected by this new dam. Past experience has shown that these Tibetans are unlikely to be consulted regarding this resettlement. For example, in 1997 the Manhla Water Project in Shigatse Prefecture, “TAR”, required the resettlement of six villages.²⁶ The residents in that case were given a form written in Chinese which they did not understand. They were told to sign the form, and then discovered that the form said they had agreed to relocate. The land the villagers were moved to was greatly inferior to their traditional lands and was in an area likely to flood.²⁷ It is also unlikely that adequate compensation will be offered to those forced to resettle. The Three Gorges Project in Western China resulted in the resettlement of thousands of people large distances away from their homelands, and many now struggle to make a living.

In addition to eviction to make way for projects, the Chinese government’s policy to settle all the nomads also necessitates forceful evictions of nomads from the lands on which they traditionally herded (see chapter on The Right to Livelihood). Many testimonies provided to TCHRD in 2001 spoke of the desperate unhappiness amongst nomads whose lands were being fenced and allocated.²⁸ Protests by nomads against forced relocation are not uncommon. In Tsekhok County, Malho “TAP”, Qinghai a group of nomad families was told to relocate twice. The first time their tents and houses were demolished and security forces sent in to arrest any protestors. The families were relocated to new land. After four years, however, the same families were told they would have to move once again.²⁹

Rural housing: lack of infrastructure and services

The fourth principle defined by the UN as being part of “adequate housing” concerns the availability of services, and the struggle of people for access to and control over basic living resources such as land, building materials, water, heating, fuel and fodder.³⁰

Most rural Tibetans are farmers or nomads and live in houses built by the family themselves in their family’s traditional communities. Numerous arrivals in 2001 from Tibet testified to poor living standards in rural villages. The vast majority of villages do not have electricity.³¹ A recently-arrived refugee from Do-wi Salar Autonomous County in Tsoshar “TAP”, Qinghai says that a water tax was introduced in the area in 1998 but was not accompanied by better access to water. He commented wryly, “I don’t mind paying water tax if the government has spent money in making water taps along with cement and some other constructions to it. We do not have such things.”³²

...we are forced by Chinese authorities to buy canvas tents instead of our tents of dried yak skin, which we find expensive and unnecessary

Discrimination in urban housing

The fourth principle of the right to adequate housing is that it be accessible to all groups.

This principle is also supported by the International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, colour, or national or ethnic origin, in the enjoyment of the right to housing.³⁵ The Chinese Constitution also grants the right not to be discriminated against on the grounds of being of a minority nationality.³⁶ Despite such laws, in 2001 Tibetans suffered discrimination in relation to access to housing.

A recent arrival from Tibet who worked as a construction labourer and rickshaw driver in Lhasa explains another area of discrimination. “When Tibetan people from other parts of the country come to Lhasa, they have to pay a guest registration while staying in their friend or relative’s house. This policy is not applied to Chinese citizens.”³⁷

This informant is referring to a discriminatory application of the Chinese housing registration (Ch: hukou) system, which states that all residents in urban areas must have registration cards. The monitoring agency Human Rights in China has pointed out that the registration scheme is intended to counter the perceived threat to social stability created by people moving into cities from rural areas.³⁸ Chinese settlers coming into Tibet are already offered incentives including guaranteed housing accommodation.³⁹ It would hardly be surprising if in addition to this they were encouraged to bring their friends and relatives to stay without having to register them as guests. If this is the case, it is a clear breach of China’s constitutional guarantees against discrimination, a breach of ICERD and a breach of the ICESCR.⁴⁰

Culturally inappropriate housing

Housing is more than just a roof over one’s head. It should be “understood as a place from which to build social relations, influence the surrounding environment and create culture — instead of purely as the physical structure of the building”.⁴¹ For this reason, the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has listed the seventh component of the right to adequate housing as being the right for that housing to be culturally appropriate. Any “development or modernisation in the housing sphere should ensure that the cultural dimensions of housing are not sacrificed”.⁴²

The Tibetan people’s struggle to express their identity through housing can also be seen as part of their struggle for survival within Chinese-occupied Tibet. The destruction of housing around religious institutions, for example is a breach of Tibetans’ right to live in housing which is appropriate to Tibetan Buddhist culture and lifestyle.

Even the nomads have been forced to change their housing. A nomad from Darlag County, Golog “TAP”, Qinghai, says “we are forced by Chinese authorities to buy canvas tents instead of our tents of dried yak skin, which we find expensive and unnecessary”.⁴³ The yak skin tents are ideally suited to the Tibetan climate and are part of nomadic culture.⁴⁴ In forcing nomads to abandon their traditional tents, the Chinese government is once again denying Tibetans the right to express their culture through their housing.

In urban areas, many reports reveal that Tibetan-style housing is being rapidly replaced with, or outnumbered by, Chinese-style architecture. This reflects the increased numbers of Chinese settlers moving into the towns as a result of China’s population transfer policies. In Lhasa, for example, the Tibetan quarter of Lhasa occupies less than one square kilometre which is only two percent of Lhasa’s size.⁴⁵ The rest of the capital is being rapidly built up with Chinese residences. This pattern is repeated throughout the growing towns of Tibet.⁴⁶

Conclusion

In 2001 TCHRD documented many instances where Tibetans had their rights to adequate housing denied. Foremost among these were mass evictions from two religious institutions which affected at least 8,000 people, rendering many of them homeless. Tibetans were also denied access to the basic resources and infrastructure necessary for housing, in comparison to Chinese migrants who often receive housing as one of their government’s incentives for relocating to Tibet. New housing being constructed in Tibet, particularly in Lhasa, is designed with little respect for traditional Tibetan culture, making a mockery of China’s constitutional guarantees that “minorities” may retain their culture.

Although the Chinese Constitution affords some rights to its citizens, for example, the right not to suffer unlawful intrusion, there are no courts for people who have had their constitutional rights breached to take action in; so, for example, if a Tibetan believed that an action of the Chinese government were in breach of the Constitution there is nothing they can do.⁴⁷