BEIJING, Sep 8 (AP) -- The scene on the grounds of a U.N. women's conference Friday said it all: a protester holding a poster of a woman with her mouth gagged, and a Chinese security officer telling her and other demonstrators to be quiet and get inside.

Tensions over freedom of expression are threatening to boil over at the Fourth World Women's Conference, as tightly policed China shows increasing impatience with the debate and dissent the international conference has brought.

In the latest face-off, three Hong Kong television journalists were detained this morning as they covered a human rights protest on the conference grounds. In recent days, China has reacted with growing stridency to criticism from foreign delegates to the U.N. conference and the private gathering. Delegates have raised a variety of subjects embarrassing to China, from human rights to mandatory family planning.

Organizers hope the conflict with China won't overshadow the gathering's principal goal: agreement on a wide-ranging platform spelling out ways to help improve the lives of women worldwide. "The spirit of the negotiation is very satisfactory," said conference secretary-general Gertrude Mongella, but she added: "The pace could be speeded up."

Abortion and gay rights are among the most controversial platform topics, negotiators have said. Inside the conference hall Friday, about two dozen people unfurled a banner saying "Lesbian Rights Are Human Rights," but it was quickly taken down and the protesters hustled out.

Meanwhile, in a sprawling, muddy tent city outside Beijing, some 23,000 activists from private women's groups were packing up their literature and folding their brightly colored banners, getting ready to go home.

The 10-day gathering in Huairou closed Friday with a ceremony of Chinese music and dance. But even this did not go off without interference from Chinese security agents.

They briefly blocked an Australian dance-and-storytelling troupe from getting onstage to perform a fire dance. The Chinese objected because the women's troupe is affiliated with Amnesty International and includes in its stories an account of a Tibetan nun jailed for opposing Chinese rule of the Himalayan region. The Australians were eventually allowed to dance, as long as they did not tell any stories.

Despite logistical difficulties and run-ins with Chinese security, participants called it a success. "Global women's issues have ceased to be a concept -- they're a reality," said South African activist Judi Fortuin.

Protests were common at the Huairou forum -- which might be one reason the Chinese gave the activists a gathering site 30 miles west of Beijing. But now, with the U.N. conference in full swing in Beijing, the Chinese are having to cope with protests in the capital itself. They're not happy about it.

Amnesty International, crusading publicly in China for the first time, delivered human-rights petitions to half a dozen embassies. The government considers the group anti-China, but was forced to allow them in as official conference participants. The group's taxi was tailed by Chinese security personnel as members made the rounds to embassies, but they were not prevented from delivering the petitions.

Earlier Friday, about 30 women marched inside the conference complex before delivering a petition with 1 million signatures to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Jose Ayala-Lasso, calling on the world body to implement the 1993 Vienna Declaration on human rights. Plainclothes police stepped in, trying to get them to fold up large purple posters showing a woman with her mouth gagged. "OK, take them down. You can show them in the building, not here," one guard admonished. "It's not proper." "Please, go away!" said another guard.

Chinese security did not arrest any of the protesters, but they followed and videotaped them, and detained a reporter, cameraman and technician from Hong Kong's TVB, releasing them about two hours later.

In an apparent attempt to stave off any outcry over the journalists' detentions, China's official news agency flashed the news that they had been detained after striking a Chinese conference organizer. It said they had apologized "after receiving criticism and education."

China, initially eager to play the gracious host, has been more and more blunt in recent days in its rebukes of outspoken foreigners.

On Thursday, China's Foreign Ministry -- asked about a strongly worded human-rights speech earlier this week by first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton -- suggested point-blank that foreign delegates mind their own business.

There was no mention Friday in the official Chinese media of a silent protest a day earlier by Danish parliament members in Beijing's Great Hall of the People. The nine Danish delegates, attending a meeting of an international lawmakers' group, wore T-shirts depicting an atomic blast and the words "Stop" in Chinese and "No" in French. An account of the meeting in Friday's official China Daily said simply that they had discussed ways to increase the number of women lawmakers.