Leaders of Thai anti-government protests were swiftly granted bail yesterday after surrendering to police but have vowed new rallies, raising fears of mounting turmoil days after deadly street clashes.
Seven People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) leaders turned themselves in on arrest warrants for illegal assembly and inciting unrest and were released after about two hours of questioning.
“The police have granted bail to all protest leaders unconditionally,” said senior PAD leader Sondhi Limthongkul, one of those who surrendered, before heading to a protest camp at the prime minister’s offices, which PAD supporters have occupied since late August.
Sondhi had late on Thursday called on cheering crowds at the Government House compound to march to the national police headquarters in Bangkok on Oct. 13 to protest a recent crackdown.
Thousands of protesters on Tuesday marched on parliament to try and stop a speech by new Thai Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat, prompting clashes with police which left two dead and hundreds injured in the worst street violence in Bangkok in 16 years.
Efforts by Somchai to end the months-long campaign against his party have so far failed, and his government appears to have few allies left.
Even his former chief negotiator with the protesters said in an interview with the Bangkok Post yesterday that he saw no peaceful way out of the turmoil.
“A House dissolution cannot solve the problem,” said Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, who became the first political casualty of the protests against the current cabinet when he resigned as deputy prime minister on Tuesday.
“The problem can be solved by three institutions — the monarchy, which remains politically neutral, the military, which appears to be not interested in intervening, and the government, which stays above the problem,” he said.
“So I see [the answer in] a putsch,” he told the English-language daily.
“I am open to options from all sides ... but I have to use my own judgment on what is the most appropriate action,” Somchai told reporters yesterday.
The PAD launched their street campaign in late May, saying the ruling People Power Party (PPP) is running the nation on behalf of ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra and only came to power because of vote-buying in December elections.
Turmoil escalated on August 26 when PAD supporters stormed the prime minister’s Government House offices, prompting the Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants for nine PAD leaders on charges including insurrection.
But the Appeals Court on Thursday revoked arrest warrants on the serious charges of insurrection, paving the way for the seven men, including PAD co-founder Sondhi, to give themselves up.
Also on Thursday, the Criminal Court freed two other PAD leaders, Chamlong Srimuang and Chaiwat Sinsuwong, on bail, in a ruling greeted by jubilant PAD supporters at Government House as a victory.
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