Displaced residents vow to sue organiser of expo in Shanghai

Fifty Shanghai residents whose homes were demolished to make way for next year's World Expo say they will file a lawsuit against the event organiser, the International Exhibitions Bureau, in Paris next month.

They said the IEB was allowing the Shanghai government to stage the event despite its failure to live up to the official slogan of the expo: 'Better City, Better Life'.

Five of the displaced residents held a press conference in Hong Kong yesterday to share their stories, along with Sandy Shen Ting, director of the League of Chinese Victims.

Ms Shen said 18,000 Shanghai households had been affected by the expo since 2002, when the city won the right to host the event. 'The government removed their houses in the name of the World Expo, but only about 360 households lived inside the designated expo site area,' she said.

Many houses were destroyed without compensation, and people who were compensated did not receive enough to buy a new apartment in the same district. Residents who refused to leave were beaten or detained by police. 'The Shanghai government has violated the promise they made to win the bid,' Ms Shen said. 'It infringes on human rights ... if the IEB and the government refuse to settle the problem, every single contract delegations sign during the expo will be a debt of blood they owe residents.'

Last month, the group wrote a letter to the Paris-based IEB informing them of the problem, as well as urging it to put pressure on the Shanghai government over the issue. But their request was rejected.