About 1,000 Chinese people held a rally in Brussels on Tuesday to show support for the upcoming Beijing Olympics.

The participants, most of them students, gathered in a small square near the city center and then marched to Schuman Square.

The rally was peaceful amid the chants of "Go Beijing! Go China! Go Olympics!" and patriotic songs. A traditional Chinese lion dance was also part of the rally.

"We want to promote the Olympics and to let people understand China and the Beijing Olympics in the summer," said Liu Xinhai, one of the organizers of the rally.

People in Europe want to know China, relying almost completely on Western media, he said. Chinese students in Belgium feel obliged to make their voice heard and to show their support for the Chinese government.

Following the riots last month in China's Tibet Autonomous Region and neighboring regions where ethnic Tibetans live, the Western media launched a smear campaign against China, Zhang Weihong, a scholar in Antwerp said.

"In the past few weeks, right in the heart of this beautiful land of liberty, equality and democracy, clouds overshadowed sunshine; slanders spoke louder than truth," he said.

He hoped that Western people could get to know a real China by visiting it instead of being misled by the media.

Tuesday's rally followed protests in various European capitals and U.S. cities.

(Xinhua News Agency April 30, 2008)