On Wed., April 9, in San Francisco, Tibetans and their supporters disrupted the Olympic torch relay run to protest China’s treatment of Tibet and its people. Because of the demonstrators, the organizers changed the run’s route, but the protesters found out about it and came within steps of grabbing the torch. On this page and opposite, clockwise from above, protesters confront a bus suspected of carrying the torch; police drag off protesters doing civil disobedience; two women are knocked down by a police motorcycle after breaking through the first line of police and coming close to the torchbearer, who, in an interesting twist, whips out a small Tibetan flag, at rear; a man meditates in front of the bus and encourages others to join him; a Beijing Olympics booster and Tibet supporter face off in the shadow of the San Francisco Giants baseball stadium, which the route passed. The protest also caused the cancellation of the San Francisco closing ceremony for the torch relay.
