Beijing: The Olympic torch arrived on Saturday in a tense Tibet under tight security and surveillance.
At the beginning of the ceremony at which the torch was lit, hundreds of onlookers stood for a minute of silence in memory of the victims of the tragic earthquake in China's Sichuan province last month.
The torch path through Tibet has been strongly criticised by exile Tibetan groups after Chinese government' reprisals and measures against demonstrations in Lhasa, Tibet's capital, earlier this year.
Protests have followed the path of the torch around the world, through Europe and the US and elsewhere. But the protests subsided after the massive quake, which brought a world-wide outpouring of help for Beijing in the recovery efforts. Beijing will host the Olympic games in August.
