Hand-picked spectators cheered runners as the Olympic torch relay passed through Tibet's capital Lhasa on Saturday, just three months after deadly riots against China's rule here. Paramilitary police watched the event closely from the ground and surrounding buildings, an AFP photographer witnessed, while the area was closed off to all but those given special passes for the event.
Students and employees of state-owned companies were among those chosen to cheer the torch as it passed through the city before ending in front of the Potala Palace, former chief residence of exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama.
Tibetan singer Caidan Zhuoma took the torch to the palace before it was combined with the special flame that was carried up the Tibetan side of Mount Everest. Rights groups, meanwhile, insisted that China was irresponsible for allowing the flame to visit the region. But the carefully-staged relay leg ended apparently without incident after less than two hours, instead of the scheduled three, with no reason given for the change.
Many locals were told to stay at home, and shops along the relay route in the remote, Himalayan city were closed to the public. Beijing's crackdown on the violence that began in Lhasa on March 14 - and spread to other areas of western China with Tibetan populations - drew international concern over China's rule of the region.
Chinese authorities closed Tibet to tourists after the crackdown, claiming it was unsafe for travellers to go there. On Saturday morning, crowds in Lhasa waved flags and shouted rehearsed slogans like "Good Luck Beijing" and "Good wishes for the Olympics" in unison as the torch made its way through the city.
Starting from Norbulingka, the former summer palace of the Dalai Lama, the torch was carried first by 75-year-old Tibetan mountaineering hero Gonpo. Beijing had shortened the original route in Tibet from three days. It further cut the event to three hours, citing last month's deadly earthquake in the country's south-west. The torch heads to neighbouring Qinghai province on Sunday - an area with a large Tibetan population that was also hit by unrest in March.