BEIJING, Sept 7 (Reuter) - Australia has protested to China over the harassment and surveillance of Tibetan women at a global women's forum, its second such protest in a week, an Australian embassy official said on Thursday.

The protest delivered on Wednesday followed an incident at the Non Governmental Organisations (NGO) Forum on Women near Beijing in which Canberra's Ambassador to China Michael Lightowler rescued two exiled Tibetan women from fierce verbal attack by members of China's official Tibetan delegation.

Lightowler lodged a "forceful protest" with Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen, calling the continuing harassment of Australians of Tibetan origin "totally unacceptable," the embassy official said.

It was Australia's second formal protest to China in less than a week regarding harassment by Chinese security of women attending the forum near Beijing.

The first followed an incident at a Beijing hotel where Chinese security officials interrupted a meeting of NGOs and tried to remove microphones, the official said.

China has come under sustained criticism for heavy-handed security and the harassment and surveillance of delegates to the NGO forum and to a parallel U.N. World Conference on Women being held in Beijing.

In a speech to the women's conference earlier this week, U.S. First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton condemned Beijing's interference in the rights of forum participants as "indefensible."