Last year Mr Ye sought permission to protest against such forced evictions. He was arrested for “disturbing social order” and sentenced in December to four years in jail. His family have not seen him since and do not know where he is held.

His son, Ye Mingjun, said: “I filed an appeal just a few days ago against his sentence, but the court refused to accept the case because they said my father must sign the papers in person. But he can’t do that because he is in jail and we have had no contact with him.”

Mr Ye is not alone in his plight. Officials say that 300,000 city residents have been moved, some illegally, to make way for the £42 billion project to prepare Beijing for the Olympics. Those who complain encounter persecution, or even jail.

Amnesty International’s annual report for 2004 highlights the practice, threatening to turn it into a human rights embarrassment for the Chinese authorities. “In the context of economic restucturing (in Beijing and elsewhere) large numbers of people were reportedly denied adequate reparation for forced evictions, land requisition and job layoffs,” it says.

“Public and large peaceful protests against such practices increased, leading to numerous detentions and other abuses. Beijing was often the focus for such protests due, in part, to house demolitions during the city’s preparations for the Olympics in 2008.”

Beijing and its 12 million inhabitants are seeing one of the most dramatic transformations of the 14th-century city since Chairman Mao pulled down its soaring wall after sweeping the Communist Party to power in 1949. Building an Olympic Games infrastructure is the kind of ambitious project at which China’s communist rulers, with the benefit of years of central planning behind them, are particularly adept.

The plans include an Olympic Green covering nearly 2,800 acres — 1,680 acres of park and 1,000 acres for the Olympic Centre. The National Stadium, a controversial project resembling a bird’s nest that has been halted once for modifications, will seat 80,000 people. Not content with building 19 sports stadiums and refurbishing 13 others, city planners have seized the opportunity to reshape the landscape of Beijing.

“There is a master plan for a new Beijing centre that is linked to 2008,” Nicholas Becquelin, of Human Rights in China, said. “All is being organised around this.”

Those evicted who feel that they have not been compensated adequately may have little redress. M Becquelin said that last year the courts received instructions not to take up any case seeking compensation. And residents who lose homes or businesses face the combined might of city authorities and wealthy developers eager to profit.

“In a system so opaque there are huge avenues for corruption for anyone with a lead about an area to be developed,” M Becquelin said.

The creation of a new cityscape has provoked unease even in China’s usually tame press. “As a city with a wonderful architectural history, Beijing is struggling to find her way between preservation and reconstruction,” the official Liaowang Weekly said this month. “The architects haven’t provided us with an answer to this contradiction, but the bulldozers for 2008 can’t wait any longer.”

Developers have accelerated the destruction of old areas of the city, flattening hundreds of the winding alleys — hutongs — where people have lived for centuries.

“To pull down the old city is not the answer to Beijing’s problems,” Liaowang said. “The more old houses you pull down, the more social problems you face because the more hutongs disappear, the bigger the population thronging the city centre.”

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