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HONG KONG - The Olympic torch relay got underway Friday in wet conditions in Hong Kong, in what is seen as a last chance for protesters to pile more pressure on China over Tibet and its human rights record.
After weeks of demonstrations that have turned the relay into a public relations nightmare for China following its crackdown in Tibet, the torch was set for a day of pomp and celebration before heading to the mainland Saturday.
Windsurfer Lee Lai-shan, Hong Kong's only Olympic gold medallist, began the relay through the city's rainy streets, carrying the flame on the home stretch to Beijing which is hosting the Games for the first time from August 8.
She waved to the crowds packing the streets in Hong Kong's Kowloon district, surrounded by the team of bodyguards who have also been the target of criticism at earlier stops of the relay.
With the flame now on Chinese soil and Beijing keen to shift the focus from protests to the Games themselves, minor scuffles between China supporters and pro-Tibet demonstrators broke out before police intervened.
About 10 pro-Tibet protesters were loaded into a police van after being heckled by a group of China supporters, who cheered when they were pushed into the vehicle, an AFP reporter said.
"This is the first Chinese city that the torch is coming to," protester Christina Chan told AFP before police took her away.
"We wanted to show that Chinese people can have rational discussions about Tibet."
Hong Kong, handed back to China in 1997 by former colonial ruler Britain, has a degree of freedom absent in the mainland -- and Friday is likely to be the last chance for major protests along the torch route.
Scattered demonstrations were held before the relay began, including by a small group of pro-democracy campaigners who have been pushing for the full suffrage promised to Hong Kong when it was handed back to China.
"We just want the world to know that there are many people in Hong Kong who are supporting the Chinese people," Albert Ho, a Hong Kong legislator and democracy supporter, told AFP near the site of the torch-lighting ceremony.
"But that includes the many people in Tibet and mainland China who do not have the freedom to speak."
Thousands of people lined the tightly secured streets to get a glimpse of the torch, many of them from mainland China, where a backlash has been building over international criticism of Beijing's handling of Tibet.
Many thronging the streets were dressed in red for China and waved Chinese flags -- a welcome sight for the Beijing leadership after the angry scenes of earlier legs.
The protests began when the flame was lit in Greece in March, and disrupted its progress through several cities, notably London and Paris -- embarrassing China, which hoped the Games would highlight its "peaceful rise" to power.
The demonstrations were sparked by a crackdown in Tibet that began on March 14, after protests against China's rule of the Himalayan region erupted into violence.
Tibetan leaders-in-exile say more than 200 people were killed in the Chinese response, which included sealing off the region to foreign reporters and tourists, making accounts of bloodshed impossible to verify.
China said 20 people had been killed by Tibetan "rioters" until Monday, when state media for the first time said police shot dead a Tibetan pro-independence "insurgent."
The deaths renewed attention on China's human rights record, including its treatment of dissidents, handling of Tibet, and links with the government of Sudan, itself under fire over Darfur.
US actress-turned-activist Mia Farrow was in Hong Kong on Friday, using the attention on the torch to urge China to use its leverage with Sudan to end the years of bloodshed in Darfur that have left an estimated 300,000 dead.
"Please, China," she told CNN. "It is within your power to stop the genocide."
The torch is due to wind its way across Hong Kong for several hours, including a trip across the city's spectacular Victoria Harbour.
It then goes to Macau on Saturday for several hours before finally arriving on the Chinese mainland. - AFP/ir
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