Olympics ‘displaced more than two million people in 20 years’

THE Olympic Games have displaced more than two million people in the last 20 years, mostly minorities such as the homeless and poor, a rights group said yesterday.

A total 1.5m people will have been displaced by the Beijing Games alone, according to a report by the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions.

“Our research shows that little has changed since 1988 when 720,000 people were forcibly displaced in Seoul, South Korea, in preparation for the Summer Olympic Games,” said Jean du Plessis, the group’s executive director. “It is shocking and entirely unacceptable that 1.25 million people have already been displaced in Beijing, in preparation for the 2008 Games, in flagrant violation of their right to adequate housing.”