Tight security surrounds Beijing torch relay in Greece

By Karolos Grohmann

ATHENS (Reuters) - Tight security surrounded the last day of the Greek leg of the Beijing Games torch relay on Saturday with police repeatedly changing the route to the Athens Acropolis for fear of protests.

Human rights activists and Tibetan demonstrators disrupted the globally televised torch lighting ceremony in ancient Olympia on Monday, breaking a security cordon and unfurling protest banners during the Beijing organizing chief's speech.

Further protests marred the start of the relay, with demonstrators lying on the ground in front of vehicles accompanying the torchbearers in Olympia and holding up the runners several times.

"The relay route to the Acropolis has already been changed three times today," a Greek official close to the relay told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

"We ourselves do not know the exact time of the flame's ascent to the Acropolis."

Exiled Tibetans and human rights activists have vowed to demonstrate in Athens on Saturday and Sunday, the day the flame is officially handed over to Beijing Games organizers (BOCOG).

The flame will then arrive in China on March 31 for the start of a domestic and international relay.

More than 1,000 police will be on guard during the handover ceremony in and outside the Panathenian stadium, site of the first modern Olympics in 1896.