China denies torch escorts are thugs

BEIJING, April 15 (UPI) -- China Tuesday said the security guards accompanying the Olympic torch are volunteers who want "to maintain the safety, purity and dignity" of the Games.

Foreign Minister Jiang Yu denied charges by Britain's Lord Sebastian Coe, chairman of London's 2012 organizing committee, that the guards are little more than thugs.

"The escorts are volunteers. They are not law-enforcement personnel," Jiang said. "Their duty is to maintain the safety, purity and dignity of the Olympic Games."

Australia and Japan are refusing to allow the security guards to protect the torch for those legs of the international tour, and Japan was even balking at issuing them visas, The Financial Times reported.

The torch ran into demonstrations against China's treatment of Tibet in London, Paris and San Francisco.

The torch makes its next appearance Wednesday in Pakistan, where an Interior Ministry official Tuesday told the Times the government is worried about suicide attacks by those opposed to China's rule of Xinjiang, which has a Muslim majority.