Petitioner's village in Beijing to be demolished

BEIJING (AP) -- A rights group urged Beijing authorities Thursday to scrap their plan to tear down a settlement where thousands of aggrieved citizens from around the country stay while appealing to the central government for help.
Justice seekers from all over China crowd into the neighborhood of dilapidated single-story homes in southern Beijing's Fengtai district, drawn by the cheap rent and close proximity to the State Council petition office, which lies just across a highway.
They stay for weeks and sometimes months at a time, cooking on hot plates and sharing an outhouse with hundreds of others, while petitioning the central government for help in fighting local corruption or other abuses.
On Thursday, large printed notices could be seen plastered on walls in the neighborhood informing local residents that they had to leave by noon on Sept. 19. The notices said the demolition was being done to make way for a road leading to the capital's south train station.
The New York-based group Human Rights Watch said in a statement that up to 4,000 people would be affected. It said the demolition was being done in order to clean up the city ahead of a twice-a-decade Communist Party congress in mid-October that will renew President Hu Jintao's mandate and set policy for the next five years.
"Petitioners are some of China's most vulnerable citizens, and they have a right to housing while they pursue their legal claims," Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. "Demolishing the Fengtai settlement only adds insult to injury."
Local residents said they expected to be compensated but the petitioners, because most of them rent, likely have no right to compensation without a lease or rental contract.
Several petitioners said the demolition will make it difficult to stay in Beijing because other districts are too expensive or prohibitively far from the petition office.
"If the petition village is demolished, I won't have anywhere to go and will have to live on the street," said Ma Xuecheng, a 54-year-old petitioner from north China's Shenyang city in Liaoning province.
A court ruled in 1999 that Ma was wrongly convicted of badly beating a man after he had already served seven months in jail. He is seeking compensation and social security from the government.
The number of petitioners in the district had been expected to swell in the run-up to next month's party Congress. People often come to Beijing at times of big political events in the hope they can gain more attention for their plight.
A woman with the local Fengtai government, who gave only her surname Wang, said residents would be compensated, but did not give specific details.
China's petition system dates back thousands of years and is designed to allow ordinary people to raise formal grievances.
"I'll die of anger if I just give up and go back to home," said Fang Shihua, a 52-year-old petitioner from north China's Jiamusi city in Heilongjiang province. She and her 30-year-old son, who has cancer, have been living in the settlement for a year and don't know where they will go after Sept. 19.
Fang claims corrupt officials at the sugar factory where she used to work have not paid her the back salary she is owed or provided medical insurance or unemployment benefits. She also said she was beaten for reporting on local corruption.
"This place is no kind of home," said Fang, gesturing to the 3 meter by 1.5 meter (10 by 5 foot) room she now shares with her son and a huge pile of trash just outside the door. "What a place here. But still we hope for a fair resolution."