BEIJING, March 28 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Police have given the go ahead for China's first domestic protests against the war on Iraq, but greatly limited the numbers allowed to demonstrate, organizers said Saturday, March 29.

One demonstration is to be held by a group of intellectuals in a park and the other by students of the prestigious Beijing University, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"We have been allowed to protest inside Chaoyang Park Sunday afternoon, but the numbers of protesters will be limited to 100 people," Han Deqiang, a professor at the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics told AFP.

"We can't march in the streets and we can't protest in front of the U.S. Embassy."

Protesters would be asked to show identification and to register with organizers, and police would tightly control any other "spectators" who showed up in support of the anti-war stance, Han said.

Despite protests worldwide opposing the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, China has refused to allow its people to take to the streets, fearing activists could be emboldened to take on domestic targets.

Meanwhile, police approved an anti-war demonstration on the campus of Beijing University Sunday, March 30, morning, but would restrict that protest to 150 students, Ruan Cao, a student leader of the Beijing University Student's Association told AFP.

"We are not sure how we will organize this protest, it may be a march or it could be a sit-in, but we do have the approval," Ruan said.

It was possible more students would attend than the 150 allowed, he said.

Protesters inside the park would be required to wear arm bands identifying them as being registered and approved demonstrators, she said.

China opposes the war, but fears that anti-war demonstrations could spill over into widespread discontent against corruption, abuse of power and other social problems like growing unemployment.

Complicating matters for police is that a group of 150 foreigners living in Beijing received permission to hold a brief protest outside the U.S. embassy Sunday morning, which will be the first open anti-Iraq war protest in China.

"I think it's a shame that China does not have anti-war demonstrations and everywhere in the world there are anti-war demonstrations and the first anti-war protest in China is by foreigners," said Tong Xiaoxi, another organizer of the Chaoyang park protest.

Meanwhile, protestors flooded the streets of world capitals denouncing the war on Iraq.

Fifty women volunteered Saturday, March 29, to go to Baghdad to serve as "human shields" as about 300 Yemeni women held an anti-war protest in the capital Sanaa, organizers said.

Carrying the Holy Koran, the group called for jihad or holy war. "It is time to make jihad", said their banners.

"We are wearing our shrouds to defend Iraq," read another banner.

The women hung white shrouds stained with red around their necks over traditional all black robes, and most were veiled.

"Fifty of the woman are ready to serve as human shields in Baghdad," human rights activist Rahma Hujaira told AFP, adding that they were already filling in the necessary paperwork to go.

Meanwhile, dozens of Yemeni journalists staged a sit-in at their union headquarters in Sanaa as part of continuing protests against the 10-day old conflict.

Armed riot police fired teargas on anti-war protesters in the Malaysian capital Saturday before chasing demonstrators through a crowded shopping centre, witnesses and rally organizers said.

Terrified shoppers and passers-by were pushed aside and jostled as baton-wielding police stormed the mall as they rounded up protest leaders, they added.

Chanting "destroy America, long live Islam", more than 1,000 people, including children, students and women, gathered outside the Petronas Towers, the world's tallest buildings, to protest against the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

The gathering was called in defiance of a police ban on the demonstration.

Plans to march to the U.S. embassy were thwarted when riot police blocked off the road with trucks. After then marching to the Australian high commission, police swung into action to break up the gathering, firing teargas and storming the crowd.

In the pandemonium, protesters sought refuge within the twin towers' shopping centre, but riot police armed with batons and shields chased them inside.

Mohamad Hatta Mohamad Ramli, an organizer of the protest, said that a dozen people were arrested, including Syed Husin Ali, leader of the opposition Malaysian People's Party.

"Yes, I have been detained with about 13 others," he told AFP from a police station via his mobile phone. "They have not told me the reasons. There is no need for this arrest."

Syed Husin criticized the firing of the teargas, describing it as "unjust and an act of violence".

"It is a peaceful gathering and the police have floundered our constitution, which guarantees freedom of expression," he said.

Britain's main anti-war group, the Stop The War Coalition, said marches were being staged in at least 20 cities from midday (1200 GMT) as a way of "expressing mounting anger at the news of the rising civilian casualties".

A rally was planned outside BBC television offices in London as part of a campaign for more media coverage of deaths and injuries to civilians.

Stop The War Coalition spokeswoman Ghada Razuki told AFP: "We've been inundated with complaints about the biased reporting of the BBC. They are just following completely the government line."

Prime Minister Tony Blair has been Washington's staunchest ally in the U.S.-led war. According to Iraq Body Count, a group of British and U.S. academics and researchers who provide a toll compiled from online media reports, between 283 and 391 civilians have been killed in the war in Iraq since it began on March 20.

As well as London, demonstrations were planned in scores of towns and cities, including the Scottish capital Edinburgh, Southampton on the southern English coast, Birmingham and Coventry in central England, Cambridge in the east and Manchester in the northwest.

About 100 Indonesian women, including a popular singer and a soap opera actress, rallied outside the U.S. embassy in Indonesia's capital Jakarta on Saturday to condemn the U.S.-led war on Iraq.

The protesters, mostly housewives with their children, shouted "Allahu Akbar" (God is the Greatest) as they waved posters denouncing U.S. President George W. Bush as "the king of terrorists."

"We want to show our solidarity with the Iraqi people. We are very sad that children and the elderly have become victims of this war," comedian and soap opera actress Dorce Gamalama told Elshinta radio. Also among the crowd was popular singer Elvi Sukaesih.

About 100 protesters from the Front for the Struggle of the Poor picketed the tightly guarded U.S. embassy earlier Saturday, urging Malaysia and Indonesia not to allow U.S. warships to pass through the Strait of Malacca between them. The protestors burned an effigy of Uncle Sam.

Filipinos showed their opposition to the U.S.-led attack on Iraq in a novel way on Saturday by flying kites with slogans condemning the offensive.

About 40 members of the left-leaning group, Youth Peace Watch, flew 10 kites in Manila's central park, carrying such messages as "Iraq Freedom, Killing Innocent Lives," and demanding "Missile Free Skies."

Unlike other protest rallies in this country, which were closely watched by riot police, the kite-flyers only had curious bystanders as onlookers. The government of Philippine President Gloria Arroyo has been one of the staunchest supporters of the U.S.-led campaign to topple Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and disarm his government of weapons of mass destruction.

Hundreds of South Koreans opposed to the U.S.-led war against Iraq and South Korea's dispatch of troops there marched through city streets and scuffled with riot police here Saturday, witnesses said.

The protestors burned a U.S. flag laid upon a model of South Korea's National Assembly building and waved portraits of U.S. President George W. Bush marked with the symbols of Nazis.

"No war, no war," they chanted while marching in the busy Jongro district. They also chanted slogans urging South Korea's parliament to reject a government motion to send 700 non-combatants to help coalition forces in Iraq.

Rows of riot police kept the 2,000 demonstrators some 200 meters (660 feet) away from the U.S. embassy.

Bangladeshi Muslims pray for peace

On Friday, 10,000 mostly Muslim protesters took to the streets after weekly prayers.