BANGKOK – Thousands of Thai “Red Shirts” gathered in Bangkok on Saturday to mark nine months since a bloody crackdown on their anti-government rally and to press for the release of detained leaders. Police estimated around 25,000 protesters massed in the city as part of a rally that crossed from Bangkok’s retail heart to the Democracy Monument, both sites of bloodshed during demonstration in April and May of the last year.
Dressed in their trademark colour and waving banners, flags and plastic clappers, the crowd cheered loudly as the movement’s key figures spoke to protesters. “We came today to ask for justice for our people who died exactly nine months ago at this place,” said Thida Thavornseth, leader of Red Shirt movement. “They died for our fight we will ask for justice for them from those who do not show either political responsibility or legal responsibility,” she said.
More than 90 died and nearly 1,900 were injured in clashes between protesters and the army during the two-month rallies in 2010 calling for immediate elections. Thailand’s political landscape has remained fractured since the unrest. The mainly rural, working class Reds are broadly loyal to fugitive former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a military coup in 2006 and lives overseas to avoid a jail sentence for corruption imposed in absentia.
