TOKYO (AFP) - Chinese authorities assaulted three journalists from a Japanese news agency in their Beijing hotel room, the agency said early Saturday, kicking them and destroying two computers.

The three journalists from Kyodo News were in the Chinese capital covering a National Day rehearsal when authorities stormed into the room of their hotel Friday night, the news agency said.

Kyodo alleged a reporter and two cameramen were kicked "and hit their heads to make them kneel down...", without specifying who the "authorities" were. It also did not disclose the nationality of the three journalists.

They threw the two computers out of the room and into the corridor of the hotel, which is near Tiananmen Square, the venue of the National Day celebrations scheduled for October 1.

China's Foreign Ministry had ordered news organisations not to take photos when the country conducted a rehearsal September 6, but the ministry has not issued such an order since then, according to Kyodo.

Security forces have swarmed over central Beijing in the lead-up to a parade that will mark 60 years since the founding of Communist China.

Businesses, schools, and traffic shut down as columns of tanks and assorted other military vehicles bearing missiles and an array of other hardware rumbled down the city's deserted main east-west thoroughfare, the Avenue of Heavenly Peace, and towards Tiananmen Square.

Security forces had earlier swarmed over central Beijing, shooing citizens away from what will be the parade's route through the heart of the city.

Earlier this week, hundreds of journalists protested in Hong Kong, in southern China, against alleged police brutality towards three of their colleagues covering syringe attacks in China's restive Xinjiang region.

Around 700 demonstrators, wearing black and holding placards, held a march to call on the Xinjiang government to apologise to the reporters and demanded Beijing move to stop media repression.

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