News (49)
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Battir, Palestine: Settlers Invade Heritage Site |
By :Yuval Abraham, +972 mag |
29 July 2020 |
‘I want Battir to go to hell’: Settlers move in on Palestinian World Heritage site
Palestinians in the West Bank agricultural village of Battir are encountering armed Israeli settlers trying to push them off their land.
Khaled and Miriam Muammar live in Battir, an agricultural village in the occupied West Bank, just More...
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Zimbabwe Land Commission Pushes Joint Land Titles |
By :Patrick Chitumba, Chronicle |
21 July 2020 |
Commission pushes for joint land ownership
The Zimbabwe Land Commission has urged couples to ensure that ownership of their land reflects that it is jointly owned to protect the remaining spouses, especially women from being displaced in the event of death.
Surviving spouses can now inherit land if its ownership is registered More...
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Colombia: Evictions amid the Coronavirus |
By :Peoples Dispatch |
13 May 2020 |
Many question the motivation of the city government to evict the community amid the pandemic as they have been occupying the land for the last 20 years.
On May 11, Colombian social movements and human rights organizations denounced the arbitrary, violent evictions of families in the Altos de la Estancia neighborhood More...
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South Africa: Evictions Despite Moratorium |
By :Abahlali baseMjondolo |
29 March 2020 |
Evictions continue in Durban despite the national moratorium
The national government made a clear promise that there would be no evictions during the national shutdown implemented to slow the spread of the coronavirus. However, today, at around 12:30, Calvin Security returned to the Ekuphumeleleni settlement in Mariannhill, which falls under More...
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Kashmir: India to "Reclaim" Encroached Land |
By :Safwat Zargar, scroll.in |
15 March 2020 |
The Jammu and Kashmir government [under Indian occupation] plans to reclaim at least 1 lakh [100,000] hectares of encroached state land and village commons by the end of this month. About 65% of this land falls in the Jammu division of the newly created Union Territory, revenue department officials told More...
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Kenya: 500 Taita Taveta Families to Be Evicted |
By :Brian Ocharo, The Nation |
12 March 2020 |
More than 500 families are now facing eviction from land said to belong to former assistant minister Basil Criticos.
This comes after Mr Criticos renewed his plans to repossess the 1,000 hectares of land in Taita Taveta County which he claims was illegally allocated to the residents.
The former Taveta MP on More...
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Brazil: New Decree to Support Land Grabs |
By :Sputnik News |
12 December 2019 |
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro signs a decree giving title to smallholder farmers, but may encourage land grabbing.
President Jair Bolsonaro issued a decree on Tuesday that will allow tens of thousands of small farmers finally to earn title to the land they cultivate, fulfilling a campaign promise to the agricultural sector More...
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Brazil: Loggers Murder Amazon Forest Defender |
By :Aljazeera |
03 November 2019 |
An indigenous forest defender has been killed and another wounded after they were ambushed by illegal loggers in Brazil`s Amazon forest, according to authorities.
Paulo Paulino Guajajara, a leader of an indigenous group seeking to protect the Arariboia indigenous reserve in Maranhao state from incursions, was shot in the face while on a More...
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Most South Africa Municipalities Don’t Deliver |
02 July 2019 |
Most South African municipalities not delivering for citizens
If the South African public were ever in doubt at the reasons for service delivery protests in townships and municipalities, a closer look should be taken at the municipal audit report released by Auditor-General Kimi Makwetu who expressed concern at the financial mismanagement More...
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Zimbabwe Farmers Hawking to Survive |
By :Jeffrey Moyo, IPS |
28 May 2019 |
Zimbabwe’s Resettled Farmers Hawking Cigarettes to Survive
MARONDERA, Zimbabwe—Subsistence farmer Rogers Hove proudly brandishes a worn-out letter for his five-hectare piece of land he obtained from government following the chaotic land seizures from white commercial farmers over two decades ago. What matters most to him, he says, “is to see my More...
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India’s Unrelenting Forced-eviction Crisis |
By :HLRN-India |
09 April 2019 |
New report highlights the unrelenting crisis of forced evictions, finds over 200,000 persons evicted in India in 2018. Over 114 houses demolished every day, 23 people evicted every hour.
On the eve of India’s General Elections, Housing and Land Rights Network India (HLRN) held a press conference in New Delhi today More...
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Adjudicating HRAH in India |
By :HLRN-India |
09 April 2019 |
On the eve of India’s General Elections, Housing and Land Rights Network India (HLRN) held a press conference in New Delhi today to release a new publication: Adjudicating the Human Right to Adequate Housing: Analysis of Important Judgments from Indian High Courts.
As documented by HLRN, India’s courts often have ordered More...
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Zim: CSOs Pose Resolving Govt Displacements |
By :Tatenda Chitagu, newsday |
13 February 2019 |
The Zimbabwe People’s Land Rights Movement (ZPLRM), a member of the Habitat International Coalition (HIC), has slammed government over planned displacements of thousands of villagers across the country and urged President Emmerson Mnangagwa to walk his talk over the irreversibility of the land reform programme.
HIC is an independent international coalition More...
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Kenya: Inhabitants Seek Protection from Evictions |
By :Jillo Kadida, The Star |
01 August 2018 |
Residents of more than six Nairobi estates yesterday sought to stop their eviction by the government.
Houses are to be demolished today in Kaloleni, Makongeni, Mbotela, Mutindwa, Dandora and Kenyatta University villages, Lang’ata and Wilson-South C link road reserve.
Moses Nyakiongora served residents with the notice on July 19. He is the More...
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HICtionary Newly Updated |
By :HIC-HLRN |
06 May 2018 |
HIC-HLRN has just updated the HICtionary: Key Habitat Terms from A to Z. This reference work is the result of deliberation and debate across multiple specializations, regions and cultures within the membership of Habitat International Coalition (HIC). The purpose of that debate—and this reference work—have been to consolidate and harmonize More...
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Unearthing Truths: Israel, Nakba and JNF |
By :The Editors of Moving Forward |
01 May 2018 |
The monthly Moving Forward is published with support from Jews Say No! That organization engages in community education, street theatre, and organizing to make their members’ voices heard in Jewish communities and as partners in the broader movement for justice in Palestine/Israel. The following article is the editorial to Moving More...
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Peru: Shipibo-Konibo Forced from Forest to Slum |
By :Jack Guy, Editing by Anastasia Moloney and Ellen Wulfhorst, Thomson Reuters Foundation |
20 February 2018 |
Forced from rainforest, Peruvian tribe faces new woes in Lima slum
LIMA—Wedged between the rubbish-choked Rimac River and lanes of traffic belching fumes, the Cantagallo slum in downtown Lima is a far cry from the Amazon rainforest land that the Shipibo-Konibo people were forced to flee two decades ago.
Hundreds of More...
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South Africa: Another Abahlali Comrade Fallen |
By :Abahlali baseMjondolo Movement SA |
12 January 2018 |
Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Statement
Another Comrade Has Fallen in the Struggle for Land
Our movement has been facing a lot of brutality in the last three months. On 19 November our chairperson in the Sisonke Village land occupation in Lamontville, Sibonelo Mpeku, was kidnapped and murdered. On 17 December 2017 Soyiso Nkqayini More...
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Nigeria: 30K Evicted, Defying Court |
By :Amnesty International |
14 November 2017 |
Deadly mass forced evictions make life misery for waterfront communities
Over 30,000 forcibly evicted from settlements in Lagos state in defiance of court orders
11 people unlawfully killed and at least 17 missing after violent evictions by security forces and unidentified armed men
300,000 others are under threat of further forced evictions
Evicted residents More...
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Nigeria: Forced Evictions in Badia-East (Lagos) |
By :Spaces for Youth Development and Social Change |
15 June 2017 |
Spaces for Change NGO Staff Arrested, Released
LAGOS—A Task Force squad comprising demolition agents of the Lagos State Government and scores of heavily-armed security operatives invaded Badia-East this morning, Thursday, June 15, 2017. With the aid of bulldozers, sledge hammers, iron bars, and earth-moving equipment, they levelled all the structures in More...
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Cambodia: Land Grabs, Defender Jailed |
By :Prak Chan Thul and Alisa Tang, The Japan Times |
25 February 2017 |
Amid land grabs and evictions, Cambodia jails leading activist
PHNOM PENH—Even before a Cambodian judge sentenced land rights activist Tep Vanny to prison, her fellow campaigners said her fate had already been sealed.
Vanny, who fought the evictions of thousands of residents from lakeside land in Phnom Penh to make way for More...
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Brazil: Trump Tower Will Cause Forced Evictions |
By :Clare Richardson, News.Vice |
13 February 2017 |
RIO DE JANIERO – José Paulo Simplicio de Souza was devastated when the government forced him out of his home near the commercial center of Rio to make way for a luxury waterfront property three years ago.
The 33-year-old food vendor’s sorrow later turned to disgust when he found out the More...
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Kenya: Slum Violence & Housing Shortage |
By :Katy Migiro, Reuters |
28 December 2016 |
ATHI RIVER, Kenya (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Recently married with a one-year-old child, Joan Moraa Mbogo dreams of escaping Kenya`s noisy, dirty, crime-ridden capital and buying a home close to her mother`s newly-built apartment overlooking the Lukenya Hills.
Machakos County, which starts 20 kms (12 miles) south-east of Nairobi, is popular More...
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Portugal: Statement by the SRs on Water& Housing |
By :UN news |
13 December 2016 |
As the United Nations Special Rapporteurs on the right to adequate housing and the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation, we address you today at the conclusion of our joint official visit to Portugal, which we undertook at the invitation of the Government from 5 to 13 December More...
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India: Over 1500 Evicted Forcibly |
By :HIC-HLRN |
09 December 2016 |
Housing and Land Rights Network (HLRN), India, strongly condemns the forced eviction and demolition of 250–300 homes in Kishangarh, Delhi during the winter.
A 10-year old settlement that houses between 250 and 300 families, Ward Number 2 in Kishangarh is located between Mehrauli and Vasant Kunj, near Jawaharlal Nehru University in More...
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Sierra Leone: Land Grabbing of Forests |
By :Ishmael Kindama Dumbuya, Standard TimePress |
10 November 2016 |
Land grabbing around the Western Area Peninsular Forest Reserve is presently intensifying primarily for housing purposes. The Ministry of Agriculture Forestry and Food Security is directly responsible for the protection of forests in the country and through the dedicated collaboration of the Environment Protection Agency of Sierra Leone as focal More...
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Namibia: Land Grabbing Continues at Katima |
By :Lugeretzia Kooper, Namibian News |
09 November 2016 |
THE grabbing of council land at Katima Mulilo has increased due to the influx of people from rural areas to the town in search of employment opportunities, town mayor Regina Mwiya-Simataa said in a press release last Friday.
Although Mwiya-Simataa conceded that the council had been slow in delivering land to More...
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Afghan Law on PPPs Allows Land-Grabbing |
By :Heart of Asia |
09 November 2016 |
Due to pressure from the World Bank and some other foreigners, President Ghani endorsed the Law on Public-Private Partnership through a legislative decree about three weeks ago, but the law, according to jurists, doesn’t accord with Afghan context, and paves the ground for land usurpation.
Some well-placed sources revealed to The More...
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Uganda: Reject State-organised Land Grabbing |
By :Kizza Besigye, Daily Monitor |
08 November 2016 |
Grabbing with Impunity
A significant portion of my 2016 presidential campaign underscored the need for immediate actions to halt the land-grabbing scourge. Land grabbing, here refers to large-scale land acquisitions, mainly, by foreign agribusiness invest ors, or the extraction industry—that are often preceded by grabbing of the land by government (including More...
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Sri Lanka: Land Grab, Eviction of Fisherfolk |
By :Oxfam International |
26 September 2016 |
In 2010, 350 families of farmers and fisherfolk living in Paanama, a coastal village in the east of Sri Lanka, were forcibly and violently evicted from lands they had cultivated and lived on for over forty years. These lands were taken over by the military to establish camps, and they More...
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Native Americans Block Oil Pipeline Construction |
By :Matt Agorist, The free though project.com |
21 August 2016 |
The Camp of the Sacred Stones has swelled from a few dozen to more than 2,500, according to Standing Rock Sioux Tribe officials. They are calling for further review of the Dakota Access oil pipeline, approved by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at the end of July without a More...
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Kenya: Save School from Evictor |
By :Victoria Green, thestar.co.ke |
08 August 2016 |
The governance of land, the most lucrative asset in Kenya, has become an impediment to the economic, political, and social development of Kenya and Kenyans. Large scale corruption in land governance is highlighted daily, from unfortunate family disputes to allegations of land grabbing by former officials and recently, Presidents.
Public institutions, More...
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Toward Responsible Land Governance in LAC Region |
By :GLTN |
04 August 2016 |
An Experts Group Meeting – EGM was organized to review and feedback the first report of the Scoping Study. More than 30 representatives from public and private sectors, CSOs, academia, international development agencies, social leaders and activists from all over the region were gathered on July14-15 2016 in San José, More...
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Zimbabwe Diamond-displaced Villagers Seek Help |
By :Reuters |
13 June 2016 |
Zimbabwe Villagers Displaced by Diamond Mining Seek Government Help. More than 1,000 families were moved from their village in 2009.
MUTARE, Zimbabwe—Villagers relocated to a sprawling government-owned farm complex in eastern Zimbabwe to make way for the nation’s biggest diamond field are hoping that President Robert Mugabe’s move to take control More...
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Brazil: Goiás Land Struggle, Exercise in Citizenship |
By :various |
01 June 2016 |
On the afternoon of 31May, one of the national leaders of the Landless Workers Movement (MST), operating in Goias, Jose Valdir Misnerovicz, was arrested in Rio Grande do Sul, in a joint operation of the Civil Police of the states of Goiás and Rio Grande do Sul. Two vehicles of More...
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Kenya: Protesting Land-grabbing ODM Chief |
By :Elizabeth Asasha, Citizen Digital |
24 May 2016 |
More than 500 residents of Oljorai Scheme in Gilgil have staged demonstrations to protest against the move by Nakuru County ODM Chairman, Peter Ole Osono, to block the registration of squatters and subsequent allocation of land.
The irked protesters claim Osono filed a suit against the National Land Commission (NLC) after More...
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Namibia: Evicted Family Squats on Roadside |
By :Luqman Cloete, Namibian News |
09 May 2016 |
A FAMILY has become destitute after government bought a farm in the Maltahöhe district on which they had lived and worked for more than 24 years.
They have been living in a corrugated iron zinc shack on the roadside about 15 kilometres from Maltahöhe with their 148 small livestock, four horses, More...
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Indonesia: Military Conducts Forced Evictions |
By :Jakarta Globe |
03 May 2016 |
Jakarta. Public lawyers have issued Indonesian military chief Gen. Gatot Nurmantyo with a written reprimand for what they deem unlawful involvement of soldiers in the forced eviction of Jakarta`s urban poor.
As many as 113 forced evictions took place in the capital last year, with the Indonesian Military (TNI) assisting in More...
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UN Housing Expert Urges India to Apply Rights |
By :OHCHR |
22 April 2016 |
UN expert on adequate housing says: "Right to housing vision needed to achieve equality for the poor in India."
NEW DELHI/GENEVA—The contrast between the vast numbers of pavement-dwellers and the rapid development of luxury real estate was brought into stark focus by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to More...
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"Right to the City" Movement Goes Global |
By :Francesca Perry, The Guardian |
19 April 2016 |
Right to the city: can this growing social movement win over city officials?
From the Taksim Square and Nuit Debout protests to bank takeovers in Barcelona and women’s workshops in Delhi, the pressure for more inclusive cities is mounting. As the UN gears up for Habitat III, will governments listen?
On More...
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Iranians Buying up Land in War-torn Syria |
By :Sirwan Kajjo and Mario Ritter, Voice of America |
27 March 2016 |
Iran’s government wants its builders to buy up property in Shi-ite majority neighborhoods of Syria’s capital, Damascus.
It is also asking construction workers to go to Syria.
This information comes from construction industry officials in Tehran and Iranian experts.
Iranian analyst Fariborz Saremi said owning real estate gives Iran more control over Syria More...
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Kochs Funding Bundy Land-seizure Agenda |
By :Jenny Rowland and Matt Lee-Ashley, ThinkProgress |
13 February 2016 |
The ultra-conservative billionaire Koch brothers are now funding the Bundy land-seizure agenda
The political network of the conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch signalled last week that it is expanding its financial and organizational support for a coalition of anti-government activists and militants who are working to seize and sell America’s More...
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HIC-critics on Habitat III Policy Papers |
By :HIC |
05 February 2016 |
Since the very early stages of the Habitat III preparations, Habitat International Coalition (HIC) has called for the integrity of the Habitat II (1996) commitments and modalities; this demand has three related aspects:
• Processes must uphold the Habitat II-established principle to be as inclusive as possible;
• Maintain the Habitat Agenda, More...
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Oregon Land Stand-off Ends in Arrests, 1 Dead |
By :Evan Perez and Holly Yan, CNN |
27 January 2016 |
Oregon occupation has fatal consequences. Long-time settler family member Ammon Bundy, other protesters arrested in Oregon; LaVoy Finicum killed.
BURNS OR—The weeks-long armed occupation of a federal wildlife refuge headquarters in Oregon suffered two major blows when protest leader Ammon Bundy was arrested and another key figure was killed.
Bundy and More...
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Nigeria: UNSR Urges Halt to Eviction Trend |
By :OHCHR |
23 November 2015 |
GENEVA—The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, Leilani Farha, today urged the Nigerian Government to put an immediate end to the ongoing trend of evictions in the country. The human rights expert raised concerns with the government about the large-scale demolitions and evictions carried out More...
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Human Rights and the New Habitat Agenda |
By :Leilani Farha, UN Special Rapporteur Newsletter |
22 October 2015 |
In her second report to the UN General Assembly, Leilani called on States to include a human rights framework in the development of the New [Habitati] Agenda, to be adopted at the UN Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (also known as Habitat III), October 2016 in Quito, Ecuador. More...
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German CSO Forum Addresses Habitat III |
By :Forum on Environment & Development |
31 July 2015 |
The German Forum on Environment & Development was founded in 1992 after the UN conference in Rio on environment and development. Its purpose is to coordinate German NGOs in international political processes on sustainable development. It was strongly involved in the preparation and the civil society processes of the Habitat More...
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HIC Reviews Habitat III Issue Papers |
By :HIC-HLRN |
31 July 2015 |
Habitat International Coalition has just issued its compilation of inputs from Members and officers following their review of the Habitat III Issue Papers. The 22 thematic contributions from technical experts selected by the UN-Habitat/Habitat III Secretariat have been drafted as a framework for the debate leading up to the Third More...
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Land. That’s What Habitat Was About |
By :Moira Farrow, The Vancouver Sun |
23 June 1976 |
In spite of the war of words between Israel and the Arabs, in spite of the militancy and marching over nuclear energy, the key word at Habitat was land.
Like a rock thrown into a pond, the land debate is going to ripple around the world for many years, because it’s as More...
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