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HONG KONG - CHIEF Secretary Henry Tang said yesterday that the Beijing Olympic committee might shorten the route of Hong Kong's torch relay on May 2 following anti-China protests overseas.
The torch relay has been marred by unprecedented protests by activists criticising China's human rights record, its crackdown in Tibet and its support for Sudan despite years of bloodshed in Darfur.
In London, protesters nearly grabbed the torch, and in Paris, Chinese security officers extinguished its flame and hustled it to the safety of nearby buses amid rowdy protests that prompted officials to call off the last one-third of the relay.
Hong Kong is a likely location for aggressive protests because the former British colony enjoys Western-style civil liberties such as freedom of protest.
The city - a major gateway for travel to the mainland - also has liberal visa policies that grant visa-free access to citizens of major Western countries.
The torch's scheduled arrival in Hong Kong on April 30 is symbolic because it marks the torch's return to Chinese soil after being transported across the world.
The Hong Kong authorities are considering shortening the torch's planned 33km relay in the city, Ming Pao Daily News and Apple Daily reported on Tuesday.
The Hong Kong government confirmed yesterday that Chief Executive Donald Tsang would be a torch-bearer. But it was not immediately clear if Mr Tsang would run the first leg.
There will be 120 torch-bearers involved in the Hong Kong relay, the South China Morning Post reported.
An organiser of the annual Hong Kong commemorations marking China's crackdown on student protesters in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989 said nine protesters would hold a 'torch of democracy' and run alongside the Olympic torch-bearers on May 2, the newspaper said.
The Hong Kong authorities are also considering transporting the torch to its next stop - the neighbouring casino enclave Macau - by plane instead of by ferry to avoid protests at sea, Ming Pao said.
ASSOCIATED PRESS, BLOOMBERG
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