By Tenzin Sangmo
New Delhi, May 2 – The Olympic flame’s Hong Kong leg of the relay got underway today embarking on a series of runs over highways, bridges and through canyons of skyscrapers that will last eight hours. The torch is back on Chinese soil after a tumultuous passage through 21 cities in five continents that began in March. Authorities have deported seven human rights activists over the week fearing disruption of Friday’s relay. However, American actress and Darfur campaigner Mia Farrow was allowed entry into Hong Kong upon promising non-interference in the event.
“They wanted some reassurance that we were not here to disrupt the torch relay, which of course we are not,” Farrow told reporters.
The relay began with Hong Kong’s only Olympic gold medalist, Windsurfer Lee Lai-shan carrying the torch in a steady drizzle through the streets. People came out in large numbers wearing red and waving Chinese flags as a show of support for the Olympic Games in Beijing.
The crowd hurled abuses at a small group of about ten pro-Tibet supporters compelling them to seek refuge in police vans. A mob of 30 jostled a dozen policemen surrounding Christina Chan a University student, also part of the group campaigning for human rights in Tibet and China. She was taken away by the police after pro-China supporters threatened her. Chan had wrapped the Tibetan national flag around her body and later began waving it before being out numbered by pro-China crowd.
“This is the first Chinese city that the torch is coming to. We wanted to show that Chinese people can have rational discussions about Tibet”, she told AFP before being taken away for her own safety.
Hong Kong, a former colony of the British Empire was handed back to China in 1997. Hong Kong enjoys relatively more freedom than is permissible in mainland China under a modus operandi called ‘one country, two systems’ which allows the media to criticize its government and citizens to hold street protests. The Hong Kong leg is also seen as the last chance for major protests before the torch departs for mainland China after a stopover in Macau.
Meanwhile, bad weather conditions have stalled the 31-member climbing team from summiting the Everest with the ‘special torch’. Held up at an advanced base camp amid tight vigilance and keen not to repeat the world wide protest that dogged the Olympic torch tarnishing its very message of ‘journey of harmony’, China has kept the logistics and timings of the climb under wraps, reports Nick Mulvenney from Reuters who is stationed at the Base Camp.
