The last houses in “Petitioner village” near the southern railway station in Beijing have been swept away, petitioners say.
北京另一位访民赵淑玲对本台说：“因为现在要开奥运会了，那南站变成国际列车站，很豪华，共有地下三层。奥运会时会有许多外国人来，访民会影响市容，所以当局就要将它拆掉。”
Petitioner Zhao Shuling said: “It’s because of the Olympic Games. The area around the southern railway station will become an international railway terminus, which will be huge, with three levels underground. Around the time of the Olympics, a lot of foreigners will come to Beijing, and the petitioner village will spoil the look of the city. That’s why the authorities have demolished it.”
记者：拆了之后，访民就没地方住了吗？
赵淑玲：当然就没地方住了，希望您呼吁，因为我也是访民，我太理解这些人了，他们如果没有苦，没有难，没有冤，他们何必要这么背景离乡，挨饿受冻到这里来呢？
Asked where the petitioners were going to live, Zhao replied, “Of course there’s nowhere for them to go. I hope you will be able to tell people, because I am a petitioner too, and I really understand what these people are going through. Only great hardship, grief and injustice could prompt them to leave their homes and villages to suffer hunger and cold here in Beijing.”
RFA’s Mandarin service spoke to a duty officer at the Xuanwu district police station to try to confirm the petitioners’ reports, but he said he didn’t know what the situation was.
Image: Google Maps. (I am not sure exactly where petitioner village is, but the southern railway station is at the top right of this screenshot. If anyone knows exactly where the area is, please comment.)
[...] documentary about petitioners (in Chinese), including long interviews with petitioners in the old petitioner village (now demolished) and in the subway, in fact, exactly the sort of video that Deng is talking [...]