KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) — The Olympic torch began its journey through Kuala Lumpur on Monday as part of the Malaysian leg of the Beijing Games relay, witnesses said, amid fears of disruptions.
The torch left Merdeka or Independence Square after a brief ceremony at 2.21pm (0621 GMT). It will be carried by 80 torchbearers before arriving at the iconic Petronas Twin Towers four hours later.
"Malaysians are largely supportive of the Olympic Games and the torch rally," Olympic Committee of Malaysia president Imran Jaafar told reporters after kicking off the relay.
"It is a festive atmosphere here... and shows the good relationship we have with Beijing," he added.
More than 500 people gathered at Independence Square with numerous Chinese students wearing red and white t-shirts emblazoned with the phrase, "one dream, one world, one China." They cheered wildly when the relay began.
It was a party atmosphere as brass bands entertained the crowd despite a brief scuffle earlier, police said.
"A Japanese family and their son were waving a Tibetan flag when they were set upon by Beijing Olympic supporters in the Independence Square," senior police official W.Karthik told AFP.
An AFP reporter who witnessed the incident said a group of Chinese nationals hit the Japanese family and their child with plastic air-filled batons and shouted: "Taiwan and Tibet belong to China."
Malaysian police then quickly intervened and took the Japanese family away.
"They have been taken away to a police station for documentation (of their travel details)," Karthik said.
Authorities have beefed up security in key tourist areas of the Malaysian capital after the torch relay was disrupted on other legs in Paris and London, and greeted by protests in India.
In Japan the Olympic torch relay, which is set to be held there on Saturday, was originally to set off from a celebrated Buddhist temple, but will instead start in a parking lot due to fears of anti-Beijing protests, officials have decided.
The seventh-century Zenkoji Temple in Nagano, the mountain town that hosted the 1998 Winter Olympics, withdrew from plans to be the start point for the Japanese leg of the relay next Saturday because of China's crackdown in Tibet.
"We decided to change the starting point to a vacant lot which used to be the site of a municipal building," a Nagano municipal official told AFP.
"The reason is so we can minimise changes to the original relay plan while ensuring the security of the relay," he said.
The Zenkoji Temple backed out of the relay on Friday due to objections over China's crackdown in predominantly Buddhist Tibet, which has seen its largest protests in two decades over Beijing's controversial rule.
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