Athens - Three French demonstrators who disrupted the Olympic torch-lighting ceremony were released after a public prosecutor charged them with offending public sentiment without provocation, the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders said Tuesday. The demonstrators, all members of the press freedom group, unfurled a banner that depicted the Olympic rings transformed into handcuffs at the ceremony Monday in Olympia, Greece, as the torch began its relay journey to Beijing, where the Summer Olympic Games are to begin August 8.
One of them approached Beijing Games chief Liu Qi during his speech in front of hundreds of officials but was quickly led away by police. Liu did not get distracted by the commotion and continued his speech while television footage cut away from the incident.
The organisations secretary general Robert Menard unravelled a second black banner were guests were seated.
"We were in no way attacking the Olympic spirit or Greece," Reporters Without Borders said. "We were simply protesting against the policy being carried out in China during this period of intensifying repression."
The three members of the organisation were released late on Monday on a misdemeanour charge and will appear in court on May 29. The demonstrators face a year in prison if convicted.
The press freedom group called the charge "absurd and senseless" while calling for a boycott of the Games' opening ceremony.
Demonstrators wearing "Free Tibet" shirts also held up the start of the relay by lying in front of cars, preventing runners from passing with the torch. Reports said at least another six people, including a Swiss national, were detained.
The head of the Greek Olympic Organizing Committee, Lambis Nikolaou, was furious, saying protestors did not respect the ancient site.
Hundreds of police were stationed at the ancient site in the western Peloponnese to guard it after campaigners lit their own "Freedom Torch" a few weeks ago in Olympia to campaign for a free Tibet.
The official flame will be handed over to Chinese Olympic officials on March 30 at the Kalimarmaro Stadium, the home of the first modern Olympics in 1896, in Athens.
A total of 645 torchbearers will carry the flame through Greece for a week and over 1,528 kilometres.
The torch relay will travel 137,000 kilometres over 130 days through five continents before reaching Beijing's Olympic Stadium for the opening ceremony on August 8.
China's plans to take the torch through Tibet and to the top of Mount Everest have upset Tibetan activist groups, which accuse Beijing of using the site to convey a false message of harmony in the troubled Himalayan region.
Chinese troops have occupied Tibet since 1951.
As the Beijing games approach, the International Olympic Committee has come under growing criticism from human rights groups in order to pressure China to improve its human rights situation.
