Thousands of Thai pro-government Red Shirts massed yesterday in a show of support for Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, warning that they would resist attempts to oust her through the courts.
More than 3,000 Thai police and troops have been mobilized for the rally on the western outskirts of Bangkok, following political violence in which 24 people have been killed and hundreds wounded in recent months.
Thailand has been rocked by years of sometimes bloody street protests by supporters and opponents of fugitive former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, Yingluck’s elder brother.
Photo: Reuters
Up to 20,000 Red Shirts were already gathered by yesterday morning, several hours ahead of the official start of the two-day rally, according to Paradorn Pattanatabut, a security adviser to the Thai premier.
“The authorities expect more than 200,000 Red Shirts to turn out,” he told reporters, as supporters of the movement poured into the capital in buses and trucks for what is expected to be their biggest show of strength in the months-long crisis.
Paradorn said Thai authorities did not expect any clashes with rival anti-government protesters who have been holding daily rallies at a park in the city center, far from the site of the Red Shirt rallies.
“What we are concerned by is third parties,” he said, alluding to unidentified assailants who have launched a series of gun and grenade attacks around the capital in recent months, often targeting opposition protesters.
The rival rallies have highlighted the political fault lines that have riven Thai society since a military coup toppled Thaksin in 2006.
Thaksin, a telecoms tycoon-turned-politician, who clashed with Thailand’s royalist establishment, has traditionally enjoyed strong support in the northern half of the kingdom.
The ousted premier, who fled overseas in 2008 to avoid jail for a corruption conviction, is hated by many Thais in Bangkok and in the south who accuse him of corruption and nepotism.
The opposition says it wants to install an unelected “neutral” leader to oversee vaguely defined reforms aimed at clamping down on corruption and reining in the Shinawatra family’s political dominance.
Drawn mostly from the poor, but populous, north and northeast, the Red Shirts say they will not accept the removal of another democratically elected government.
“If they are stubborn and go ahead to appoint a neutral prime minister or stage a coup, the Red Shirts will fiercely oppose it,” the movement chairman Jatuporn Prompan told reporters at the rally site.
Yingluck faces neglect of duty charges linked to a loss-making rice subsidy scheme and allegations of abuse of power over the transfer of a top Thai security official.
Her supporters view the moves as an attempted power grab.
Hundreds of Red Shirts underwent self-defense training earlier this week to act as security guards for the rally, which is expected to be the first of a series of major protests to defend the government.
The Thai Constitutional Court last month annulled a February general election disrupted by demonstrators, leaving Thailand in a legislative stalemate with only a caretaker government.
Thaksin-allied parties won every previous election for more than a decade. The Thai Election Commission is due to hold talks with political parties on April 22 about holding new polls.
Australians were downloading virtual private networks (VPNs) in droves, while one of the world’s largest porn distributors said it was blocking users from its platforms as the country yesterday rolled out sweeping online age restriction. Australia in December became the first country to impose a nationwide ban on teenagers using social media. A separate law now requires artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot services to keep certain content — including pornography, extreme violence and self-harm and eating disorder material — from minors or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34.6 million). The country also joined Britain, France and dozens of US states requiring
Hungarian authorities temporarily detained seven Ukrainian citizens and seized two armored cars carrying tens of millions of euros in cash across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering, officials said on Friday. The Ukrainians were released on Friday, following their detention on Thursday, but Hungarian officials held onto the cash, prompting Ukraine to accuse Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of illegally seizing the money. “We will not tolerate this state banditism,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said. The seven detained Ukrainians were employees of the Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank, who were traveling in the two armored cars that were carrying the money between Austria and
Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on Friday after dissolving the Kosovar parliament said a snap election should be held as soon as possible to avoid another prolonged political crisis in the Balkan country at a time of global turmoil. Osmani said it is important for Kosovo to wrap up the upcoming election process and form functional institutions for political stability as the war rages in the Middle East. “Precisely because the geopolitical situation is that complex, it is important to finish this electoral process which is coming up,” she said. “It is very hard now to imagine what will happen next.” Kosovo, which declared
MORE BANS: Australia last year required sites to remove accounts held by under-16s, with a few countries pushing for similar action at an EU level and India considering its own ban Indonesia on Friday said it would ban social media access for children under 16, citing threats from online pornography, cyberbullying, online fraud and Internet addiction. “Accounts belonging to children under 16 on high-risk platforms will start to be deactivated, beginning with YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, Bigo Live and Roblox,” Indonesian Minister of Communications and Digital Meutya Hafid said. “The government is stepping in so that parents no longer have to fight alone against the giants of the algorithm. Implementation will begin on March 28, 2026,” she said. The social media ban would be introduced in stages “until all platforms fulfill their
RSS