• Greece hands Olympic torch to China
• Protesters immediately arrested
• Falun Gong members taken into police custody

GREECE has handed over the Olympic torch to the organisers of the Beijing Games during a ceremony at an Athens stadium overnight after protesters shouted anti-Chinese slogans and tried to unfurl a banner.

About a dozen people, shouting "Save Tibet'', were immediately arrested by police.

Three members of the Falun Gong movement, which is outlawed in China, who tried to enter the stadium were taken into custody.

"We have been arrested and taken to the police station,'' Kostas Tsolis, one of the protesters, said.

About 2000 Greek police officers were deployed to Athens to patrol around the city as sporadic protests by pro-Tibetan activists and Greek leftists erupted along the torch relay route through Greece in the last few days.

The protests began on Monday in ancient Olympia when three members of the press freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) disrupted the flame-lighting ceremony, one of them unfurling a banner with the Olympic rings replaced by handcuffs behind top Games organiser Liu Qi as he spoke.

China has come under increasing international pressure over its crackdown on protesters in the Tibetan capital Lhasa and Chinese provinces bordering the Himalayan region.

Tibetan activist groups have put the death toll from weeks of unrest at 135-140 Tibetans. China says rioters killed 18 civilians and two police officers.

Thousands of spectators today attended the formal handover of the Olympic torch at Athens' all-marble Panathinaiko Stadium, where the first modern Olympics were held in 1896.

Spectators were searched on entry and all banners, signs or objects that could be thrown were confiscated, police said.

The torch's journey to Beijing will be the longest ever, lasting 130 days and covering 137,000 km worldwide. Most of it will be on Chinese soil.