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"A road reconstruction to be made with the sponsorship of the Japanese Government will be fulfilled around the area of your shop. In order to free the area for the reconstruction, you are officially ordered to move from your place within two days. If you will be ignorant to the error, or repeat your error, your license to posses the land will be revoked according to the Law on Land, Law on City Construction, Land Payment Law, Law on Administrative Responsibility, Ulaanbaatar City Construction Rule, and other legal acts". This short letter, with all its lack of clarity and contradictions, was what Mr.S.Magsarjav, a chairman of city planning and land management office of Bayangol district, said in his Demand-Letter handed to Ms.Tserendulam, 33, a blind mother of two and an owner of a small restaurant located near the Ulaanbaatar railroad station, on September 8, 2003.

Around noon of September 11, 2003, a Bayangol district land management officer and two policemen came to the small shop of Tserendulam and orally informed her they are ordered to "destroy" the shop as Tserendulam did not obey the above mentioned demand-letter. Tserendulam and her 10 employees were on height of their lunch-time business and were shocked with the order. Tserendulam immediately called to Mr.Boldsaikhan, the Head of the Mongolian Association of Protection of Blind People's Rights (MAPBR) and sought help in protecting her property.

When a dozen members of the Association came to the shop at 1p.m., the "shop destroying work" was temporarily stopped -- not because the government officials called a halt to it, but because a regular citizen whom police ordered to "do this job" fell down from the roof of the shop and was hospitalized with heavy injury in his head and neck.

"As soon as I arrived at the place, I immediately called to 91913661, the cell phone number of Mr.Zorigt, the Bayangol district governor, and asked who had ordered the destruction of the shop and by what right. Mr.Zorigt said he did not control the routine work of the divisions of the district governor's office, but he did know clearly that he never issued such an order" said Bayasgalan, a manager of the MAPBR to Liberty Center. "We demanded him to stop the illegal seizing immediately".

Tserendulam's case is not over. With the help of her Association Members' protest expressed at the Governor's office building on the same afternoon, she received the Governor's oral promise that the district governor's office wouldn't touch her property for a while. But she is now demanded to change the appearance of her small shop.

""The district in fulfilling the main duty to free the land"… for a new road construction" which is sponsored by foreign aid from the Japanese Government. We will discuss your issues after you submit a new scheme-proposal on new construction and appearance of your shop which shall meet the modern standard."" says Mr.Zorigt, the district governor in his letter issued on the afternoon of September 11, 2003.

Tserendulam is one of thousands of small businesses that have been having very similar problems for the last three years. In most of the cases of such abrupt and non-reimbursed seizings of properties by the Government, people are not informed of why or under what authority their property is seized and destroyed. People lose their property merely because they do not know whom to call for help from others during the process of these brutal actions because their property is so quickly destroyed. Usually small properties like Tserendulam's tea shop of 20 seats, are destroyed by Police commanded force within few hours. In some cases it takes only few minutes if machines are used. The smallest businesses, the most vulnerable and helpless element of the society, the most uninformed citizens, are the highest priority target of the current Government's brutal policy of seizing and destroying property.

The Liberty Center urges you to press the Mongolian Government not to use foreign aid as an excuse to illegally deprive the Mongolian citizens of their constitutional right to property.

"We have many reasons to protest against current Government policies, Tserendulam's case just proves that it is time to start a serious fight. Maybe we will choose a more extreme method of political struggle like a hunger strike" said Bayasgalan. "From a hunger strike, we will not suffer more than we are suffering now, we will just put our existing hunger in our homes on public display".

To support Tserendulam and the Mongolian Association of Protecting of Blinds' Rights in their future struggle for Tserendulam's right to posses her shop, contact mnblindassoc@magicnet.mn, bx19700914@chinggis.com. Telephone: 976-11-344179.

To see our previous alert on problems of blind pensioners, visit www.libertycenter.org.mn. Some pictures of how special walkways are a hazard to blind pedestrains are shown in our website.