New law soon! 20 years if you attack MP's car!

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April 8, 2009
Protests in Thailand
Abhisit's motorcade attacked
Anti-government Thai protests intensify; premier escapes injury
By Nirmal Ghosh, Thailand Correspondent

ATTACKED: A red-shirted protester punching the back windscreen of Mr Abhisit's car. The protesters moved in on the Prime Minister's convoy, blocking traffic and pelting his car with plastic bottles. -- PHOTO: THE NATION / ASIA NEWS NETWORK

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BANGKOK - THAILAND'S political crisis escalated further on Tuesday when anti-government protesters attacked Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva's car in Pattaya. One window was broken but the Premier was rushed to safety, uninjured.
The pro-democracy protesters, identified by their red shirts, first surrounded a hotel in Pattaya where Mr Abhisit was holding a Cabinet meeting.

Soon after he left, his car and one other security vehicle were caught briefly in a traffic snarl. Some red shirts on a motorcycle recognised him and called others.

More than 50 red shirts then swarmed in, blocking the cars and pelting the Premier's vehicle with plastic bottles.

Details were sketchy, but apparently the Mr Abhisit's escort tried to move him to the second vehicle. The red shirts opened the door of one vehicle and manhandled the driver and a police escort.

'This was not a peaceful protest,' Mr Suthep Thaugsuban, Deputy Prime Minister in charge of security, told reporters. 'They have violated the law, the government already warned them that they will be prosecuted.'

Pattaya is where the annual Asean summit with its regional partners, including China, South Korea, Japan and India, will be held from Friday. Thai authorities say the summit will proceed despite yesterday's violence and rising tensions in Bangkok, where the red shirts will hold a massive demonstration today.

Organisers rallied by calls from former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra hope to gather up to 300,000 in the capital.

They want to force key privy councillors accused of interfering in politics to step down and get the Prime Minister to dissolve Parliament and call an election.

Some MPs of the opposition Puea Thai party are expected to join the rally. The red shirts - called the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) - have insisted that the rally will be peaceful.

Read the full story in Wednesday's edition of The Straits Times.


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[tonychat]

Those who support a sinkie thaksin will get screwed in the end.

 

[tonychat]

That is what happen when you do a sinkie, you become a wanted man.




Bt1m prize money to get Thaksin

A prize money of Bt1 million was offered yesterday to bring to Thailand fugitive ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra, who was blamed for the ongoing political conflict.

A group of people, calling themselves "United Siam", made the offer at a press conference at the Rajabhat Suan Dusit University. The group includes retired bureaucrats, senators, academics and business people.

General Somjet Bunthanom, one of the members of the Council for National Security formed after the September 2006 coup, said yesterday that the offer was aimed at preventing the country from getting into another crisis.

"It's clear that Thaksin is the root cause of the problems. So we are offering the prize money of Bt1 million to anyone who can bring Thaksin to be prosecuted in Thailand," he said.

The general said the money would be paid by business people who "see Thaksin as a severe threat to the country and its people".

The group also issued a statement accusing Thaksin and his red-shirt supporters of insulting the monarchy, publicly and clandestinely. The group called on members of the public to rise up against the red shirts.

Thaksin, who has been in exile overseas, over the past week addressed his red-shirt supporters gathering outside Government House in his nightly video linkup. He has heavily criticised certain privy councillors, in particular Privy Council President Prem Tinsulanonda, and threatened a "people's revolution".

Senator Somchai Sawangkarn, who is part of the group, said during the press conference that "some broken-hearted communists and politicians who lost their power" were part of the movement that was campaigning against the monarchy.

"We would like to call on the public to denounce the acts by Thaksin and those people who have violated the monarchy with the goal of inciting a civil war and overthrowing the establishments," he said.

-- The Nation 2009-04-07