Hundreds of protesters gathered at Boston Common yesterday to call attention to the Chinese government’s reported human rights violations in Tibet and as Beijing continues to prepare for the 2008 Summer Olympics.

The protest was one stop for the Human Rights Torch Relay, a grassroots campaign designed to publicize human rights violations in China by moving across six continents and 40 countries.

Tibetans and Boston-area students delivered heated speeches throughout the day to inform about 200 people gathered on the Common about the political situation, while bands played songs with lyrics about the problems in Tiebet.

Pamphlets circulated at the relay claimed China has violated the rights of its citizens with increased violent repression to silence the country’s “enemies,” such as members of religious groups and democracy advocates.

The International Olympic Committee said it agreed to the Beijing location in hopes the country would improve its human rights record, but members of the Human Rights Torch Relay said they have requested the IOC demand that China to improve its record.

Taiwanese aerospace engineer Ted Lin, a Connecticut resident, passed out pamphlets and CDs, encouraging passersby to sign a petition to stop the Chinese Communist Party from acting violently against citizens.

“Now, just a few months before the Olympics, human rights violations are getting worse,” Lin said. “Hopefully, after this event, there will be more voices, more protest and more pressure on the Chinese government to put human rights first and the Olympics second.”

Lin said the Communist government is systematically destroying 5,000 years of traditional Chinese culture.

“Once virtue, morality and spiritual traditions and values have been destroyed, the whole nation turns into . . . disaster,” he said.

Organizations set up tables along the sidewalks of the Common and offered information and merchandise relating to violence in China and the controversy surrounding the 2008 Olympics.

Susan Maini, a representative for Voices of the Martyrs, an American Christian organization based in China, said Christian believers and teachers are persecuted in China.

“There’s a public misperception that there is freedom of religion,” she said.

Those protesting the Chinese government said the Olympics should be held at a location where the government does not exert such restraint on its people. To hold the games in Beijing, protesters said, would show a lack of concern for the devastating violence taking place within the country.

Harold Shurtleff, regional field director for the John Birch Society, a freedom preservation group, said the public should be informed about the nature of relations between the United States and China.

“The U.S. is mainly responsible for what’s happening in China because we give them economic support,” he said.