More than 5,000 police were expected to be deployed on Bangkok’s streets yesterday as Thailand braced itself for a fresh anti-government rally by supporters of ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
The group was expected to gather in a park yesterday evening before marching to Government House to make a series of demands, adopting the tactics of their foes, who occupied the main government offices for three months last year.
Lieutenant General Suchart Mueankaoe, commander of Bangkok Metropolitan police, said that 5,250 officers would police the event, with many more on standby along with military units.
Rally leader Nattawut Saikuar said he was not worried by the level of security.
“We are not worried over government threats to crack down on demonstrators as our rally is peaceful, unarmed and legal,” he said.
The protesters — known as the “Red Shirts” because their crimson clothes show they oppose the yellow-clad, anti-Thaksin People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) — said up to 50,000 people could attend the demonstration.
Hundreds of pro-Thaksin supporters had already begun arriving at Sanam Luang park in central Bangkok by yesterday morning, with the main throng expected from 4pm.
But police said they expected 20,000 people to present their three demands to government — for those involved in the siege of Bangkok’s airports in November to be fired from government jobs and then prosecuted and for parliament to be dissolved.
Prime Minister Abbhisit Vejjajiva sparked outrage on taking the top job in December by appointing PAD sympathiser Kasit Piromya to the post of foreign minister and two other PAD members to key advisory positions.
“Those people are considered conspirators in blockading the airports and we demand the authorities speed up the prosecution against them,” Nattawut said.
A huge stage was erected in preparation for the event yesterday. Protest leaders are scheduled to address the crowd with a series of speeches ahead of a march to Government House at 9pm.
But Nattawut said the group’s real figurehead, Thaksin Shinawatra, would not be phoning in from exile to address his supporters.
National police chief General Patcharawat Wongsuwan has promised not to obstruct the rally, but vowed to arrest any protesters who violate the law.
Thousands of anti-Thaksin protesters marched to Government House in August and occupied it for three months as they tried to topple the government elected in December 2007.
They said the ruling People Power Party (PPP) was running the country on behalf of Thaksin, who was ousted in a 2006 coup. Thaksin remains enormously divisive, despite living in exile for most of the time since the putsch.
The PAD escalated their campaign and seized Bangkok’s two airports from Nov. 25 to Dec. 3, and eventually got their wish when a court dissolved the PPP and forced then-premier Somchai Wongsawat from office.
The move paved the way for the Democrat Party’s Abhisit Vejjajiva to be elected prime minister in a parliamentary vote in December, alienating many PPP supporters who felt robbed of their democratic rights.
In the sweltering streets of Jakarta, buskers carry towering, hollow puppets and pass around a bucket for donations. Now, they fear becoming outlaws. City authorities said they would crack down on use of the sacred ondel-ondel puppets, which can stand as tall as a truck, and they are drafting legislation to remove what they view as a street nuisance. Performances featuring the puppets — originally used by Jakarta’s Betawi people to ward off evil spirits — would be allowed only at set events. The ban could leave many ondel-ondel buskers in Jakarta jobless. “I am confused and anxious. I fear getting raided or even
Kemal Ozdemir looked up at the bare peaks of Mount Cilo in Turkey’s Kurdish majority southeast. “There were glaciers 10 years ago,” he recalled under a cloudless sky. A mountain guide for 15 years, Ozdemir then turned toward the torrent carrying dozens of blocks of ice below a slope covered with grass and rocks — a sign of glacier loss being exacerbated by global warming. “You can see that there are quite a few pieces of glacier in the water right now ... the reason why the waterfalls flow lushly actually shows us how fast the ice is melting,” he said.
Eleven people, including a former minister, were arrested in Serbia on Friday over a train station disaster in which 16 people died. The concrete canopy of the newly renovated station in the northern city of Novi Sad collapsed on Nov. 1, 2024 in a disaster widely blamed on corruption and poor oversight. It sparked a wave of student-led protests and led to the resignation of then-Serbian prime minister Milos Vucevic and the fall of his government. The public prosecutor’s office in Novi Sad opened an investigation into the accident and deaths. In February, the public prosecutor’s office for organized crime opened another probe into
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
RSS