Report: Pakistan Forcibly Evicts Farmers For Urban Project

Facts

• Human Rights Watch on Tuesday published a report claiming that Pakistani authorities have been using colonial-era laws to forcibly evict thousands of farmers, so as to facilitate the $7B Ravi Riverfront Urban Development Project (RUDA) near Lahore.¹
• The massive infrastructure project, which covers over 100K acres along the Ravi River in Punjab province, was kickstarted in August 2020 by then-Prime Minister Imran Khan, reportedly to address issues such as pollution, sewage, water, and employment.²
• The plan to build a new city from scratch has been hotly contested over the past few years, mainly due to a 4K acres rich swathe of agricultural land – which the farmers call Ferozewala – lush with guava orchards and seasonal plantations of maize, wheat, pumpkins, and other cash crops.³
• The officials of RUDA claim that the land – known as Sapphire Bay – is legally theirs, and that they are within their absolute rights to acquire the land from thousands of farmers forcibly.³
• Pakistan’s government is accused of acting on behalf of private developers to purchase the necessary property — 85% of which is occupied by nearly 1M million farmers, laborers, and business owners — and intimidating, harassing, and forcibly removing farmers without paying any compensation.⁴
• In February 2022, Pakistan's Supreme Court partially overruled the Lahore High Court's finding  that the RUDA project was unconstitutional, enabling the government to continue on the land it had already acquired and paid compensation for.⁵

Sources: ¹Al Jazeera, ²Human rights watch, ³Profit by pakistan today, ⁴Eurasia review and ⁵Dawn.com.

Narratives

• Narrative A, as provided by News. The importance of the construction sector to the development of the Pakistani economy could alone justify the Ravi Urban Development Project, but its impact will go even further. Building a planned, sustainable green city will help preserve the environment while improving urban housing and attracting tourists and investors.
• Narrative B, as provided by Dawn.com. This project will benefit powerful real estate tycoons but barely anyone else — the RUDA authorities have been intimidating those living in the area to give up their land and homes at unrealistic prices, criminally charging those who resist. In addition to human costs, the planned changes to the Ravi River flow would also bring environmental damage to Pakistan.

Predictions