Red shirts pressured into cancelling 2010 ceremony
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THE RED SHIRTS have cancelled a religious ceremony marking the fifth anniversary of the bloody 2010 crackdown, after a team of soldiers allegedly surrounded a temple where the rites were due to take place.
Members of the movement loyal to ousted premiers, Yingluck and Thaksin Shinawatra, had planned a Buddhist service yesterday for scores of red-shirt supporters who died during the crackdown on their months-long protest in the capital.
However, on Thursday, co-leader Jatuporn Prompan said the ceremony had been cancelled after police and soldiers surrounded the Kerd Karn Udom temple just outside Bangkok.
“Even though the relatives have explained it is a merit-making religious ceremony, police and soldiers are not permitting them to hold it,” he said in a post on Facebook. “Therefore this year the entire merit-making ceremony is cancelled.”
A junta spokesman could not be reached comment.
However, the move comes after the government issued many warnings against holding any gatherings to commemorate the event.
Since it seized power, the Army has been repeatedly ordering the red-shirt movement to not assemble, briefly sweeping key leaders into detention in the days following the coup, closing radio stations and monitoring their communications.
Jatuporn had earlier promised to downsize the event and urged authorities to allow the victims’ relatives to attend a merit-making ceremony at the temple.
His comments came after Defence Minister Prawit Wongsuwan – a retired general who held the same government post in 2010 – said the red shirts were only allowed to hold a private memorial.
“Many members of the military were also killed and we don’t have to hold a memorial,” Prawit said on Wednesday.
Military chokehold
In March 2010, thousands of Thaksin’s loyalists occupied key intersections in central Bangkok, demanding fresh elections to replace the Abhisit government, which had just confiscated $1.4 billion from Thaksin.
The first deadly response came on April 10 followed by larger crackdowns between May 13 and 19 that left scores dead including many unarmed demonstrators, two foreign journalists and several soldiers.
Thai junta chief and premier Prayut Chan-o-cha was a top military officer at the time and is often described as the architect of the crackdown.
Prayut lifted martial law last week only to replace it with sweeping new security measures retaining the military’s chokehold over the country.
Political gatherings of more than five people are still banned, while the military still has the power to arrest, detain and prosecute people for national security crimes or those who fall foul of the country’s strict royal defamation laws.
Rights groups have argued the new rules, issued under Article 44 of the interim constitution, grant more powers to Prayut including greater censorship over the media.
The move drew condemnation from the European Union, the United States and the United Nation’s human rights chief, who described the new powers as “even more draconian”.
