4,000 to lose homes to Vladimir Putin’s Winter Olympics

[Mugu]

From The Sunday Times, Mark Franchetti in Moscow

More than 4,000 people are facing eviction to make room for the 2014 Winter Olympics in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, according to campaigners, who say that many will receive little or no compensation.

“My family has lived on this land for five generations,” said Dmitry Drofichev, a farmer. “We are being offered a fraction of what the land is worth. They’ll have to bulldoze me and the house to make me move.”

The authorities have already begun forcibly removing people from areas where Olympic facilities are to be built. Fifteen families of refugees from a war in the neighbouring republic of Abkhazia have been evicted from the outskirts of Sochi where they have lived for 15 years. They have nowhere to go.

Residents fear systematic evictions after the Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament, passed a bill known as the “Olympic law”, which will speed up the confiscation of property. Typically, land offered to those facing eviction is said to be in remote and rundown areas and payments are far below the value of the property appropriated.


Complete article at:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article3602736.ece

[Clear Blue Sky]

1. Any different in China for their Olympic facilities?

[LiberalFighter]

2. Time to abandon the Olympics

[Contrary1]

3. Same thing goes on here, it's called Eminent Domain

"Eminent domain refers to the power possessed by the state over all property within the state, specifically its power to appropriate property for a public use. In some jurisdictions, the state delegates eminent domain power to certain public and private companies, typically utilities, such that they can bring eminent domain actions to run telephone, power, water, or gas lines. In most countries, including the United States under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, the owner of any appropriated land is entitled to reasonable compensation, usually defined as the fair market value of the property. Proceedings to take land under eminent domain are typically referred to as "condemnation" proceedings..."

http://www.expertlaw.com/library/real_estate/eminent_domain.html

[Earth_First]

4. Shit. This happens each and every day in America, It's called eminent domain.

Thank your Corporate Brothers and Sisters for these land grabs, it's for the good of the PEOPLE, comrade!