China braced against further protests yesterday as it prepared for the arrival of the Olympic torch today amid reports of fresh disturbances in Lhasa.
Beijing tightened security in Tiananmen Square, where the Olympic torch will be officially welcomed to the country today before beginning a worldwide relay expected to be dogged by protests over the unrest in Tibet.
Tension in the Himalayan region continued to simmer, the Tibetan government-in-exile and activist groups said.
On Saturday, a disturbance occurred when hundreds of people in Lhasa panicked as police moved in to check residents' identity papers there, the International Campaign for Tibet and the Free Tibet Campaign said.
The incident prompted police to surround key Buddhist temples in the area and close many shops.
No violence was reported.
At Tiananmen Square, authorities announced new spot checks on visitors to "strengthen public security" ahead of the ceremony to welcome the torch, a government Web site said.
Fears of global embarrassment for China along the torch's route have grown since protesters disrupted the lighting ceremony in Ancient Olympia last Monday.
Exiled Tibetans in India yesterday lit an "independence torch" that will also be taken around the world.
Meanwhile, police in Nepal's capital Kathmandu baton-charged protesters -- most of them Tibetans -- during a demonstration outside a Chinese embassy office, detaining more than 100 people, police and witnesses said.
China continued its crackdown on the Tibetan unrest, with Xinhua reporting late on Saturday that police had arrested 26 people and seized guns and other weapons from a monastery.
Beijing also fired Tibet's top official for minority and religious affairs, Chinese state media said yesterday.
Danzeng Langjie, director of Tibet's Ethnic Minority and Religious Affairs Commission, has been "removed" from his post, a statement posted on the Web site of the Tibet Daily newspaper said.
It gave no further details on Danzeng's background or reasons for his removal.
It said he had been replaced by Luosang Jiumei, another ethnic Tibetan who has been vice secretary of the Chinese Communist Party committee of Lhasa since 2004.
The change was believed to be the first by Beijing since the demonstrations began.
In Slovenia, the EU foreign ministers expressed "strong concern" on Saturday about violence in Tibet, but skated around the issue of China's role in the unrest.
Germany said it would not send any ministerial-level participants to the Olympics opening ceremony. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, President Horst Koehler and Chancellor Angela Merkel said they did not plan to go to Beijing.
Before the two-day EU meeting, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner ruled out an EU boycott of the Beijing Olympic Games in August, but saw a need for a "European response" to the crackdown.
The response was mild and brief.
In a statement, the EU ministers did not mention the Aug. 8 to Aug. 24 Olympic Games or link China directly to the crackdown.
The ministers reiterated their "strong concern over the events in the autonomous Chinese region of Tibet, [called] for an end to the violence and [asked] that arrested persons be treated in conformity with international standards."
Diplomats said the EU was content to appeal for a peaceful resolution and leave it at that.
On Tuesday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy was the first European leader to suggest that a boycott of the opening ceremony was a possibility to protest China's handling of the unrest in Tibet.
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