LHASA, China (AP) - The Olympic torch wound through the streets of Tibet's capital Lhasa on Saturday, at the scene of bloody riots in March that helped fuel demonstrations at some of the flame's international stops.

Tight security accompanied the flame on its three-hour journey through the city, a day after officials announced additional sentences over the March anti-government rioting.

The roughly six-mile (10-kilometer) run began at Norbulingka, the Dalai Lama's former summer palace from which the Tibetan Buddhist leader fled into exile in 1959. It ended at a vast square at the base of the hilltop Potala Palace, the traditional seat of Tibetan rulers.

Hundreds of police and paramilitary troops lined the route. Onlookers, who had been carefully screened beforehand, waved flags and chanted "Go China," but the mood overall was far more subdued than at the torch's earlier stops in China's cities. Just under half of the 156 runners were ethnic Tibetan, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

A few dozen foreign reporters who were given permission to cover the Lhasa leg were required to travel in a closely guarded convoy. They were only allowed to cover the opening and closing portions, isolating them from contact with ordinary residents.

The city, which has been under a security lockdown and remains closed to foreign tourists since the March riots, all but closed down for the relay, with streets deserted and most shops shut. A security cordon was thrown around Potala Square, with costumed performers taking the place of Buddhist pilgrims who visit to turn prayer wheels and prostrate themselves in front of the palace, which is now a museum.

The Lhasa leg also saw the reunion of the main torch with a separate one carried to the top of Mount Everest, the apogee of the global relay that drew confrontations on its international legs between Chinese supporters and groups protesting Beijing's human rights record and policies toward Tibet and Sudan.

On Friday, Palma Trily, the vice governor of Tibet's Chinese-appointed administration, told foreign reporters that Tibetan exile groups were seeking to sabotage the torch run.

Palma Trily also used the briefing to announce that 12 more people had been sentenced for taking part in a March 14 riot in the city that spawned protests throughout Tibetan-inhabited regions of western China. He gave no details about their offenses or the punishments.

Palma Trily said another 1,157 people had been released from detention over minor offenses related to the protests, in which Beijing says 22 people died.

Chinese officials say the Dalai Lama was behind the March unrest. They also accuse the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize laureate of trying to sabotage the Beijing Olympics and preparing "suicide squads" to carry out attacks. The Dalai Lama denied the charges.

China says it has ruled Tibet for centuries, although many Tibetans say their homeland was essentially independent for much of that time.

New York-based Human Rights in China called the Lhasa relay a "provocative decision" that harmed efforts to "find a peaceful long-term solution for Tibet and the region."

"The government's insistence on parading the torch through Lhasa can only undermine the respect and trust required for a genuine dialogue process with the Dalai Lama," the group's executive director, Sharon Hom, said in a statement.

Amnesty International, which earlier this year expressed concern over the fate of those detained after the March protests, was heartened by word of the released detainees.

"We are encouraged by the news of the release of 1,157 people and we look forward to receiving information about the trials of the 116 people in custody announced by the Tibetan authorities," the group said.

In a report that could not be confirmed, a Hong Kong-based monitoring group said 7,000 troops had been dispatched to stand guard along the two-year-old railway line to Lhasa, on alert for sabotage attempts during the Saturday relay.

The Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said the line has been attacked more than 80 times since it opened. Incidents have included the placing of obstacles on the tracks and gunshots fired at the windows of passing trains, it said.

Officers at the two different police stations attached to the railway line refused to answer questions about security or sabotage attempts.

Organizers also said last month that the Tibetan leg, originally set for three days, would be cut to one day to make way for a switch in the Aug. 3-5 visit to Sichuan province, the center of a May 12 earthquake that killed nearly 70,000 people.

The torch next travels to neighboring Qinghai province, also hit this spring by protests in Tibetan-dominated areas, before winding its way across northern China toward Beijing on Aug. 8.

Courtesy - The Island