China has scrapped its original plans for a three-day Olympic torch relay tour of Tibet and will send the flame there just for one day this weekend, a Beijing Olympic official said on Wednesday.
The torch’s stay was cut short from three days to one following last month’s devastating quake in Sichuan
BEIJING: China has scrapped its original plans for a three-day Olympic torch relay tour of Tibet and will send the flame there just for one day this weekend, a Beijing Olympic official said on Wednesday.
Zhu Jing, a spokeswoman at the Beijing Games organising committee, said the decision to cut short the relay and run it through the Tibetan capital Lhasa on Saturday was taken following last month’s earthquake in Sichuan province.
“Following the earthquake on May 12, BOCOG has announced adjustments to the domestic legs of the torch relay,” Zhu said.
“The Tibet leg of the relay will be on June 21, with the relay taking place in Lhasa.”
The torch was originally scheduled to tour Tibet for three days from June 19 to 21 as part of its long international journey to the Games being hosted by the Chinese capital in August.
The torch is currently travelling through Xinjiang, a largely Muslim region in China’s northwest, on a three-day, four-city tour scheduled to end Thursday.
The stops in Xinjiang and the Tibetan regions of China are regarded as the most sensitive of the domestic relay route, which runs for thousands of kilometres over three months through every part of the country.
China accuses Muslim separatists in Xinjiang of plotting terrorist attacks on the Games and stepped up security in the region ahead of the relay.
Tibetans are also accused of targeting the Olympics, following a crackdown on anti-Chinese government unrest in Lhasa in March in which exiled Tibetan leaders say 203 people died. China has reported killing one Tibetan ‘insurgent’ and says “rioters” were responsible for 21 deaths.
Despite the unrest China stuck with its original plan to take the torch relay to the top of Mount Everest on May 8 using a separate flame from the one used on the relay route through the rest of the country.
The ascent took place under tight security and triggered protests from exiled Tibetan groups who said it was a provocation and politicised the torch relay.
Pro-Tibet activists have argued that the leg in Lhasa should be cancelled due to the unrest.
New York-based Human Rights Watch said Chinese authorities were using the relay as a propaganda tool and had been carrying out arbitrary arrests to prevent protests during the relay.
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