High-profile, anti-demolition protests force Chinese officials to rethink forced demolition.
China’s State Council is moving to revise the “Regulation on Urban Housing Demolition” and the legislative research of the work has started, China Daily reports.
The decision follows two recent cases of forced demolitions that raised attention of the protection of citizens’ rights and conflict resolution in China. On 13 November, Chengdu local government’s forcible demolition of a private building led to the suicide of one of the owners, Tang Fuzhen, who poured gasoline and set fire on herself. The house stands in the way of a district government’s project to link two roads. Later in the month, a woman in the Minhang district of Shanghai threw self-made petrol bombs at a demolition crew preparing to destroy her house, which is the site of a transportation hub for the 2010 Shanghai Expo.
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