Olympic Torch City Protest Request

City officials are expected to announce tomorrow if they will agree to a request that the Olympic Torch is publicly received at the April ceremony with 'alarm and protest.'

A city Supervisor put forward the resolution at a City Hall committee meeting last week. He has been supported by the dean of the city's main church, Grace Cathedral, who was reported in the San Fran Chronicle as giving it his 'unreserved and enthusiastic support.'

'This is a tremendous opportunity and we should not underestimate symbolic acts,' Dean Alan Jones said, adding that, 'with the recent events in Tibet and China, surely the time has come for the wider global community to stand in more visible solidarity with the people of Tibet and China ... who seek freedom by nonviolent means.'

Bay Area Tibetans gave evidence at the committee meeting of abuses by the Chinese government.

'This struggle is not against the Chinese people, it is against a Beijing regime that is very brutal,' Ngodup Tsering, president of the Tibetan Association of Northern California is quoted as saying.

Some people at the meeting spoke in defense of China.