ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: A Pakistani official says the route for the Beijing Olympic torch relay has been changed.
Arif Hassan, president of Pakistan Olympic Association, which is organizing the ceremony for hosting the relay, also says he is confident that the anti-China protests which have greeted the flame elsewhere in the world will not occur in Pakistan.
The torch is scheduled to arrive early Tuesday in the Pakistani capital Islamabad, from Muscat in the Middle East.
Hassan said Monday that security will be tight.
China is one of Pakistan's main military and economic assistance providers.
Meanwhile in India:
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Then This...Public BANNED from Flame of Shame Relay:
The Olympic torch relay will be closed to the public when it reaches Pakistan on Wednesday because of security concerns, a Pakistani government spokesman told CNN.
Instead of the original plan of holding the relay in public streets in Islamabad, the relay will be held in front of invited guests in a stadium, said Lt. Col. Baseer Haider Malik.
The decision to move the relay behind closed doors came a day after Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf attacked the West over the protests that have dogged the event.
Musharraf accused Western leaders and media of politicizing the Olympics by criticizing China's human rights record and its policy in Tibet.
"First of all, we consider Tibet an inalienable part of China,"
he said in an interview with China Daily on Sunday. If "anyone is harboring or abetting the separatists, we condemn that."Musharraf is in Beijing to meet with various Chinese officials...
..."You cannot superimpose the human rights and democracy environment of a Western country onto other countries," Musharraf added. "That is the error that the West and the Western media makes. This does not work at all and this must stop."...
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