Hong Kong cheers Olympic torch

HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- The Olympic torch relay got under way in Hong Kong on Friday, the first time the event is held on the soil of the host of this year's Summer Games.

Under gray skies and light rain, runners carried the torch aloft through city streets, passing throngs dressed in red and waving Chinese flags in a show of support for the Beijing Olympics. A few protesters peppered the route, but most people showed support for China's right to host the Olympics.

Police detained five to seven pro-democracy and human rights activists in the city's Kowloon Park with an hour after the relay's start.

The torch was to be carried through canyons of skyscrapers and outlying communities in the New Territories and involve 120 torchbearers and a ride aboard a dragon boat.

At Hong Kong University, student Vickie Lui anxiously awaited the relay's arrival.

"The Olympic torch symbolizes ... the spirit of togetherness and brotherhood," she said. "The Chinese take special pride in the fact that China has come so far in being able to hold the Olympics."

Lui worried about the prospect of protesters.

"If they want to demonstrate or protest and make the noise, I have no issue with that as long as they're not destructive."

Hong Kong residents were encouraged to wear red to show their support for the flame, and about 3,000 police were to be on hand. Watch the beginning of the torch relay »

Protesters have said they would wear orange -- a mixing of the Chinese symbolic colors of red for the country, and yellow for freedom. Watch why protests are a possibility in Hong Kong »

What remained to be seen was how far protests would go in Hong Kong, a special administrative region with civil liberties unrivaled elsewhere in China.

Hong Kong was a British colony until the city was handed back to China in 1997. Although Beijing makes all the big political decisions, Hong Kong was promised a wide degree of autonomy under a formula called "one country, two systems."

The media are allowed to criticize the leaders, massive street protests have been held demanding greater democracy, and English is still the official language in the courts, where judges wear British-style wigs.

But for special events such as the Olympic torch relay, Hong Kong leans more toward the "one country" part of the formula than the "two systems" part. In the past week, authorities used a blacklist to stop seven pro-Tibet and human rights activists at the airport. After questioning, they were deported.

The torch relay also will stop in Macau before heading to the mainland, including Tibet, where Chinese authorities cracked down after violent riots broke out against Han Chinese there in March.

There sometime in May weather-permitting, Chinese climbers plan to take the Olympic flame to the summit of Mount Everest, the world's highest peak at 29,028 feet (8,848 meters). Watch a journalist currently following an Olympic flame at Everest »

Authorities in Hong Kong deported at least seven activists before the flame's arrival and braced for possible protests and the arrival of more activists prior to the official torch run on Friday.

Actress Mia Farrow also was in Hong Kong to raise awareness about the fighting in Sudan's Darfur region, where an estimated 300,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million others displaced. While she said she sympathized with Tibetans "on a personal level," her main concern was in pressuring China to use its commercial ties with Sudan to end its campaign in Darfur. Watch her discuss what she plans to do during the torch relay »

China is believed to have special influence with the Islamic regime because it buys two-thirds of Sudan's oil exports and sells weapons to Sudan. China also defends Khartoum in the U.N. Security Council.

China's trade with Sudan is "underwriting the war in Darfur," she said. "The Darfur issue is one they could solve within easy reach," Farrow said.

The flame arrived on Wednesday to red-carpet treatment at Hong Kong International airport, greeted by a row of children waving Chinese flags and a band playing patriotic tunes.

The occasion also marked the 100-day countdown to the start of the Beijing Olympic Games, which begin on August 8.

Demonstrators criticizing Beijing's human rights record and its recent crackdown in Tibet dogged the relay in London, England; Paris, France; and San Francisco, California.

However, the flame had protest-free jaunts in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Monday and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, on Tuesday -- the last stop in a 29-day odyssey through 21 cities in five continents before entering China. Watch as China celebrates the 100-day mark to the Olympics »

Hong Kong grants visa-free entry to many Westerners. However, three pro-Tibet campaigners and a freedom of speech activist were barred entry into Hong Kong and questioned for hours at the airport before being deported, according to Students for a Free Tibet's web site.

The trio involved two of its members and an organizer with the Free Tibet Campaign. Their plan was to take part in a press conference that would draw attention to the likelihood of violent protests, if China did not cancel the "provocative" Tibet leg of the torch relay.

"The Chinese government has shut out international observers and media from Tibet, and now they have even stopped individuals from speaking out in Hong Kong about the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Tibet," said Kate Woznow, campaign director for Students for a Free Tibet.

China says 18 civilians and a police officer were killed in Lhasa during the March violence. Tibetan exile groups say many times that number were killed in the ensuing crackdown.

Also deported Tuesday was free speech activist Zhang Yu, who was flying in to take part in "World Press Freedom Day." The four-day conference calls for freedom of expression in China.

He was detained for seven hours before being deported, the Hong Kong Journalists Association said.

Authorities did not specify a reason for barring his entry, said the association's general secretary, Mak Yin-ting.

Danish sculptor Jens Galschiot and two others were detained and deported on Saturday while trying to participate in the same conference, Mak added.

"Jens was coming here to promote the freedom of expression, but he himself was deprived of the freedom of expression," Mak said. "The Chinese government pledged to have a free press if it could host the games. We urge the Chinese government to do it."

Galschiot created "The Pillar of Shame," a sculpture in Hong Kong depicting 50 torn and twisted bodies to symbolize those who died in the 1989 Chinese crackdown at Beijing's Tiananmen Square. E-mail to a friend

CNN's Saeed Ahmed contributed to this report

All About China