NEPAL: Community Threatened of Eviction, not Provided with Alternative Housing

(HONG KONG) - The Asian Human Rights Commission says thousands of families living in the banks of the Bagmati river are facing eviction with no housing alternatives. The number of affected families could be as high as 23,000, according to squatter organizations. No formal process for this community was followed; this violates international norms and standards. Authorities are failing to provide alternative housing opportunities to the affected families. Even worse, are reports that police manhandled and verbally abused women, children, elderly people during protests.

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The world has its own set of laws that were agreed upon by the ruling nations in 1948, and many people are not aware of this simple fact. At the root of the concept of world citizenry itself, is the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, an overriding and supreme law that ensures many essential human rights that governments today fail to observe. Also central to any hope of human success, is the understanding of the human hierarchy of needs, as defined by Abraham Maslow- more information on this at the conclusion of this entry. We must use the Internet as a tool of justice at every junction, and we need to assist all human beings, everywhere, and not allow cultural, racial or religious preferences as determiners.

In this letter to Hon. Justice Kedar Nath Upadhyay, Chairperson of the National Human Rights Commission in Kathmandu, William Gomes urges the government of Nepal to follow UN basic principles. In particular, I wish to recall that the principles mandate that “evictions should not result in individuals being rendered homeless or vulnerable to the violation of other human rights. The State must make provision for the adoption of all appropriate measures [â€¦] to ensure that adequate alternative housing, resettlement or access to productive land [â€¦] is available and provided”. I therefore urge the government of Nepal to develop appropriate housing alternatives, in consultation with the community. A thorough assessment of the affected families’ socio-economic situation and specific needs must be conducted beforehand.

I further call for the respect and the protection of the work conducted by human rights defenders in defending the community. An investigation must be launched into the allegations of excessive use of force toward the protesters, including elderly and children.

“

March 16, 2012

Hon. Justice Kedar Nath Upadhyay
Chairperson
National Human Rights Commission
Harihar Bhawan, Pulchowk, Lalitpur
G.P.O. Box: 9182, Kathmandu
NEPAL
Tel: +977-(0)1-5010015 (Hunting Line)
Fax: +977-(0)1-5547973
E-mail: nhrc@nhrcnepal.org

Re: NEPAL: Community threatened of eviction, not provided with alternative housing

Dear Chairperson of NHRC of Nepal,

Name of victims: Communities living in the slums alongside the banks of the Bagmati river, Kathmandu, Nepal

I am writing to voice my concern regarding the upcoming evictions of thousands of families living in the banks of Bagmati River. I am informed that no formal process involving the community was followed when the decision to evict them was made, in violation of international norms and standards and that the authorities have not made any plan to provide alternative housing opportunities to the affected families. Further I am concerned about reports that the police manhandled and verbally abused women, children and elderly people during protests against the eviction and that the government is deploying thousands of security personnel to conduct the eviction and fear that excessive force may be used against the families.

According to the according to the information I have received from the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), thousands of families living in the banks of the Bagmati river are facing eviction without having been provided any alternative housing. I am informed that the number of families potentially affected by the eviction is not certain yet as no definitive study have been conducted to estimate their number which may be as high as 23,000 according to the squatter organizations.

I am informed that for the last three years, the government has been announcing its attention to evict the communities living alongside the banks of the Bagmati river for development purposes. In November, the High-Powered Committee for Integrated Development of the Bagmati Civilization (HPCIDBC) directed the slum dwellers to leave their settlement within two weeks but did not offer them any alternative housing option. I am concerned to hear that after three ultimatums to the slum dwellers to evict the place, without providing them with alternative housing arrangements, a meeting on 4 December 2011 decided to resort to force to conduct the eviction. I am further concerned to hear that the head of the taskforce entrusted with conducting the eviction has since then announced in the media plans to deploy 3,000 police and armed police personnel to conduct the eviction.

Five slum dwellers’ organizations filed a writ petition to the Patan Appellate Court to suspend this decision. On 11 December 2011 the Appellate Court, Patan issued a stay order to the three District Administrative Offices of Kathmandu Valley, the Nepal Police and the HPCIDBC to suspend the eviction process until 17 January 2012. The court further ordered the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers to conduct an identification process of the “genuine” slum dwellers and to develop appropriate housing alternatives for them if they are to be evicted. On 27 January, the Supreme Court upheld the government decision to evict the slum dwellers but further ordered appropriate alternatives for them. Nevertheless, I am informed that the only alternative offered by the government is a three-month housing allowance for the few families identified as “genuinely” landless.

In interaction programmes with the representative of the slum dwellers organizations or with the media, the ministers have committed to develop suitable alternative solutions for the slum dwellers. In December 2011, the Minister for Land Reform and Management promised that the government was committed to “managing new places for slum dwellers”. Similarly the government has repeatedly pledged to form a high-level commission to solve the issues of the slum dwellers but such commission is yet to be established.

I know that the government’s plan to develop the banks of the Bagmati River has not included any provision to provide alternative housing options to the community, nor was the community consulted in the process leading to the decision to evict them. In public, the different government agencies are rejecting the responsibility for finding accommodation for the slum dwellers on each other. The government is offering to provide the landless with a three-month renting allowance but has not made any plan for relocation.

I am further informed that no proper research was done by the government to evaluate the situation in the slums, including to determine the number of children and elderly who would be affected by the relocation or to evaluate the poverty level of the community. In January the government launched a verification process to determine those who were “genuine” slum dwellers. To be considered “genuine landless slum dwellers” the inhabitants had to prove that they, their fathers and their children did not possess land and that they were not government employees. Around one thousand families only have so far gone through that process, as the majority of slum dwellers feared that the verification process was an attempt from the government to portray them as abusers and to justify their eviction without further process.

Further, I am told that the community has not received any formal notification of the eviction. Instead, the community was informed that they had to evacuate the river within one week through an announcement in the newspapers. This communication does not follow any due process as established in internationally accepted norms and standards such as the UN Basic principles and guidelines on development-based evictions and displacement.

Those basic principles further state that the affected community must be involved in every stage of the decision-making process. This has not been the case here.

The slum dwellers have organized themselves in a National Squatter Forum and have organized protests against the eviction without appropriate solutions. In January 2012, they have forwarded a letter to the Home Minister Gachchhadar and to the head of the High-Powered Committee for Integrated Development of the Bagmati Civilization and of the taskforce, Mahesh Basnet, urging them to develop a relocation plan in accordance with international standards.

A report by The Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition reports that the National Squatter Forum’s request for the government to collectively plan for eviction were “met with continuing harassment and police brutality”. I further know that on 17 January, more than 400 persons were arrested for having taken part in the protests organized the previous day. At around 4 am the same morning almost 7, 8 hundred policemen thronged into the slum area in police vans and trucks and arrested every person they found in front of them. The children and elderly people were also manhandled and pushed into police trucks. According to the same information police arrest and manhandling continued for about 4 to 5 hours. After the arrest they were detained in different police detention centers around Kathmandu valley.

I am appalled to learn that the women rights defenders who visited Maharajgunj and Tinkune police station reported that some of the detainees were injured and some women even fainted in front of them. All but 24 detainees were released within after 12 hours of arrest and detention. The police was planning to charge those 24 detainees under public offence but after pressure from national human rights organizations the government released them without any charge. The police further raided the homes of the leaders of the movement which forced them into hiding for several days.

In light of the above and keeping in mind that the government is resolute to use force against the slum dwellers and has announced the deployment of 3000 police and armed police personnel, I am concerned that excessive force may be used against the slum dwellers during the eviction process, putting in dangers the most vulnerable of them.

I further urge the government of Nepal to abide by the UN basic principles quoted above. In particular, I wish to recall that the principles mandate that “evictions should not result in individuals being rendered homeless or vulnerable to the violation of other human rights. The State must make provision for the adoption of all appropriate measures [â€¦] to ensure that adequate alternative housing, resettlement or access to productive land [â€¦] is available and provided”. I therefore urge the government of Nepal to develop appropriate housing alternatives, in consultation with the community. A thorough assessment of the affected families’ socio-economic situation and specific needs must be conducted beforehand.

”

Maslow's hierarchy of needs

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Salem-News.com Writer William Nicholas Gomes is a Bangladeshi journalist, human rights activist and author was born on 25 December, 1985 in Dhaka. As an investigative journalist he wrote widely for leading European and Asian media outlets.

He is also active in advocating for free and independent media and journalists’ rights, and is part of the free media movement, Global Independent Media Center – an activist media network for the creation of radical, accurate, and passionate telling of the truth. He worked for Italian news agency Asianews.it from year 2009 to 2011, on that time he was accredited as a free lance journalist by the press information department of Bangladesh. During this time he has reported a notable numbers of reports for the news agency which were translated into Chinese and Italian and quoted by notable number of new outlets all over the world.He, ideologically, identifies himself deeply attached with anarchism. His political views are often characterized as “leftist” or “left-wing,” and he has described himself as an individualist anarchist.