RP among worst offenders in housing rights, says group

GENEVA (AFP) — Greece, Nigeria and the Philippines were named yesterday as the worst offenders for forced evictions and breaches of housing rights by the campaign group Center on Housing Rights and Evictions.

Unveiling its annual "Housing Rights Violator Awards," the group charged the three countries with "systematic violations of housing rights and (the) continued failure to abide by their international legal obligations."

In the Philippines, hundreds of thousands of people were displaced under government policies of "beautification" and "development," with most of the victims coming from the urban poor, COHRE said.

Infrastructure projects such as rail network redevelopment, and high-prestige events like the ASEAN summit, have been behind many such evictions, with the people in question often relocated to sites with "appalling" living conditions, it added.

In Greece, Roma gypsy communities "continue to face pervasive and persistent discrimination in access to housing," COHRE executive director Jean du Plessis said in a statement.

Police took part in 79 forced evictions of Roma communities in the first half of 2006, according to the Geneva-based group’s Global Survey.

In addition, "the conditions in which these communities live are dehumanizing and constitute a grave human rights violation by the Government of Greece," Du Plessis said.