China bans public from Olympic torch run in Indonesia

Torch bearers ran with the Olympic flame in front of a closed crowd today after Indonesia barred the public under pressure from China.

Police arrested several demonstrators rallying outside the stadium gates in Jakarta and seized Tibetan flags and banners in a further blot on the global run.

Protests against China’s crackdown on rioters in Tibet has dogged stops in Greece, Paris, London and San Francisco.

The staged event in Jakarta was not televised live, apparently because no station was prepared to pay for the rights.

The 5,000 who gathered at the Bung Karno Stadium to welcome the torch under dark, rainy skies were mostly government officials, flag-waving Chinese nationals working in the city, students and people invited by the relay’s corporate sponsors.

A handful of others were turned away but the event was mostly ignored in the city of 12 million.

Hours before the torch arrived around 100 demonstrators held a rowdy rally. Several were briefly detained by police.

The Chinese Embassy had requested the event be low-key and Indonesian authorities complied, shortening the route, which was originally supposed to wind through the streets of Jakarta, and hand-picking those who went to watch.

Jakarta’s governor started the relay, becoming the first of 80 torchbearers to circle the stadium five times.

The relay heads next to the Australian capital Canberra, where torch bearer Lin Hatfield-Dodds said today she would not be taking part.

The social justice advocate said while she still supported the Olympics and its athletes, the symbolism of the relay had changed after China’s Tibet crackdown.

Hundreds of police are to guard the torch when runners take it through the city on Thursday.

Protesters were already preparing in Japan, where the relay has been re-routed in the mountainous central city of Nagano, which hosted the 1998 Winter Olympics.

Two South Koreans due to run in the torch relay in Seoul on Sunday said they too would boycott the event, also to protest the Tibet crackdown.