At least one torchbearer decided to show her support for Tibetan independence during her moment in the spotlight. After being passed the Olympic flame, Majora Carter pulled out a small Tibetan flag that she had hidden in her shirt sleeve.

"The Chinese security and cops were on me like white on rice, it was no joke," said Carter, 41, who runs a nonprofit organization in New York. "They pulled me out of the race, and then San Francisco police officers pushed me back into the crowd on the side of the street."

The Olympic torch was rerouted away from thousands of demonstrators and spectators who crowded the city's waterfront Wednesday to witness the flame's symbolic journey to the Beijing Games.

As the heavily-guarded torchbearers made their way through the city's streets on a chaotic journey, there was scuffling between police and protesters, but order was restored quickly.

The planned closing ceremony at the San Francisco Bay waterfront was canceled and another one was planned at an undisclosed location. Massive crowds had gathered at the waterfront to support and protest the flame.

If the entire point is to display the flag as it goes around the world and have ceremonies for people to attend and then you change where all of these things will take place and not tell people, then you might as well not bother.

Shouting "Shame on China!" and waving Tibetan flags, pro-Tibetan demonstrators and others protesting Chinese human rights abuses turned the running of the Olympic torch through the streets here on Sunday into a tumult of scuffles. The police said that one man broke through a tight security cordon and made a failed grab for the torch, and that 35 people were arrested.

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One protester who broke through the police cordon, David Allen, said his anger flared at the sight of British sports stars being guarded in the streets of London by Chinese security men.

"What really got my goat was our sporting heroes being surrounded by the Chinese security heavies guarding the torch," he said. "It makes us complicit in the regime's repression. You have to ask: Where were these security men last week? Beating up people in the villages of China, no doubt."

One of the protesters who sparred verbally with pro-China groups in Trafalgar Square was David Phillips, a 25-year-old American from Austin, Tex., who said he had worked for six months at the American Embassy in Beijing.

Now working at a travel agency in London, Mr. Phillips said he had witnessed human rights abuses in China. "There are serious human rights violations going on, and you can't ignore that," he said. "And this is an appropriate place for us to voice our feelings."

Seven Tibet independence activists were detained this afternoon after three of them scaled the Golden Gate Bridge and unfurled a large protest banner reading "One World, One Dream, Free Tibet 08." The three climbers remained on the bridge for about 2 hours before coming down voluntarily. Upon their descent they were met and arrested by officers of the California Highway Patrol. The daring action comes two days before China's torch relay is expected to be greeted by thousands of Tibet protesters from across North America when it arrives in San Francisco.

Local mirror of video of protestors on the Golden Gate Bridge

British Olympic chiefs are to force athletes to sign a contract promising not to speak out about China's appalling human rights record -- or face being banned from travelling to Beijing.

The move -- which raises the spectre of the order given to the England football team to give a Nazi salute in Berlin in 1938 -- immediately provoked a storm of protest.

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From the moment they sign up, the competitors ... will be effectively gagged from commenting on China's politics, human rights abuses or illegal occupation of Tibet.