Fierce clashes between policemen and activists at Treasure Hill （寶藏巖） broke out on Tuesday, with a group of protesters resisting as they were evicted from the community by policemen.

A group of 200 policemen from the Taipei City Government forced approximately 20 students and two squatters who were staging a sit-in at Treasure Hill, a historical and artistic community in southern Taipei City, to leave by dragging them away from the area.

"Do not break my hand! Someone is dying here. Do not push anymore. Help!" the protesters cried as they struggled with the police.

During the eviction, a student named Chi Yueh-chun suffered a lung collapse and a policeman received a laceration to his face. Chi was later sent to a hospital for treatment.

"Most of us were hurt. We had no time to attend to Chi who was injured, and the officials were laughing," said Chen Tai-hua, one of the protesters who insisted that the Taipei City Government should not evacuate squatters from Treasure Hill, and should not employ violent measures against them.

Tuesdays incident marked the fiercest conflict between protesters at Treasure Hill and the Taipei City Government since the latter reportedly proposed a renovation plan for the community last June and demanded that the residents leave before last October, which most of them did.

Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin said the city government has spent a lot of time negotiating with long-term residents of Treasure Hill and had arranged for them to move to better homes.

He explained that the people who were evacuated on Tuesday morning were not original residents of the area, and therefore the city government was determined to proceed with the second eviction. Electricity and water supply to the community were cut off on Tuesday morning as well.

The mayor added that all of the evicted residents were compensated in the amount of NT$720,000 each and that they had expressed satisfaction at the arrangements made for them.

According to Director of the Department of Cultural Affairs under the Taipei City Government Lee Yung-ping, the department will undertake reconstruction of Treasure Hill because most of the houses around the area were poorly built on the hillside. The department will reorganize the underground pipelines and renovate the poorly constructed houses, he said.

Vice Director of the department Lee Bin stressed that Tuesdays eviction was not aimed at razing or changing Treasure Hill, and said that the department will respect the views of the residents of the area.

But despite the department and the Taipei City Governments assurances, some people remained unconvinced and opposed to the plan to move the residents out of the area.

The Treasure Hill Public Community, a group comprised of university students and artists at Treasure Hill, said in a statement that "the eviction was an abuse of power and was a violent attack against the residents of Treasure Hill."

"Everything about the eviction had to do with the NT$100 million reconstruction plan," said Liu Yi-cheng, spokesperson for the community.

Liu said that he could not believe that a diverse and vibrant city like Taipei would allow such violent attacks against students and elderly citizens. The city government did not explain or show any official documents before the eviction, but forced us out violently, Liu claimed.

Lin Yu-an, a member of the community, said the reason they were fighting for Treasure Hill is because they are unwilling to see it be turned into a site "merely for cultural consumption."

The city governments new plan is to transform Treasure Hill from its original character to "a dull sample community," Liu said.

Treasure Hill is located on Tingzhou Road in Taipei City. It got its start when Kuomintang soldiers who had retreated to Taiwan from China built their homes in the area in the 1940s. In the 1970s and 1980s, disadvantaged people built shelters around Treasure Hill, and the settlement expanded quickly to 200 households. Residents in the settlement have developed very close and intimate social networks.

Treasure Hill was considered for demolition in the 1990s, as the government rated it an illegal dwelling area, but it was later selected to be a historical community and plans were made to turn Treasure Hill into a facility that would host artists.

In recent years, local and international artists have continued to flock to Treasure Hill, as it has developed a reputation as a unique cultural community in Taipei.

In 2004, the Taipei City Government approved a plan for Treasure Hill to be registered and preserved as the first historical settlement under the administration of the cultural department.

Treasure Hill was selected by New York Times magazine last February as one of Taipei Citys must-see areas.

According to the Central News Agency, the renovation plan will take two years to complete, and on completion of the project, residents would be allowed to return to Treasure Hill once the city government approves their applications to do so.