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URUMQI, China: China on Tuesday kicked off the Olympic torch relay's sensitive leg through Xinjiang, a predominantly Muslim western region where Beijing acknowledges there are ethnic tensions.
The legs through Xinjiang and the Tibetan regions of China are considered the most sensitive of the three-month nationwide route due to simmering discontent among local ethnic groups.
The three-day, four-city Xinjiang leg got underway with a 12-kilometre (7.5-mile) relay through the regional capital of Urumqi that began on People's Square, considered a symbol of Chinese Communist power in the city.
A senior official in Xinjiang had urged the local population to watch the torch relay on television due to security concerns, state media said.
"During the day's activities, we expect hundreds of thousands of citizens and groups from enterprises to be out chanting slogans," Li Guangming, the region's ranking sports official, told the Xinjiang Daily.
"We have considered that too many people can lead to the appearance of unstable elements, so we are proposing to everyone to stay at home and watch the television broadcasts," he said in the Monday interview.
Police had imposed particularly heavy security at the People's Square, and anyone entering it had to go through metal detectors and bag searches.
The crowd on the square, numbering around 3,000, chanted "Go, China!" and "Go, Olympics!" Many wore stickers of the Chinese flag on their cheeks.
They were overwhelmingly Han Chinese, with only a tiny number of Uighurs, the largest ethnic group in the region.
Leading away from the square, the crowds lining the route were also mostly Chinese, many of them were youths who had got the day off from school, as well as government employees.
The torch was lit in the shadow of a monument to the People's Liberation Army.
Prior to the start, organisers held a moment's silence for victims of last month's devastating Sichuan earthquake.
A large red banner urged unity among Xinjiang's ethnic minorities, while a large TV screen showed video proclaiming that Xinjiang's 47 minorities "get along so well".
Xinjiang is a region of vast deserts and stunning mountains that is home to more than eight millions Uighurs, a Muslim Central Asian people who speak a Turkic language.
The sensitivity of the Xinjiang torch relay was heightened after Beijing earlier this year said it smashed several Xinjiang-based terror plots, some of which it said were targeting August's Beijing Olympics.
Many Uighurs dismiss Chinese claims of a terror threat as a ploy to justify what they say is severe religious and political oppression by Beijing.
Uighur exiles and residents told AFP that Chinese authorities had detained thousands of Uighurs and confiscated the passports of many others as the torch relay and Olympics approach.
The torch moves on Wednesday to the Silk Road oasis city of Kashgar, then to the cities of Shihezi and Changji on Thursday.
- AFP/so
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