Abhisit calls government to task over white-mask protests
Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva on Monday urged the government to consider why people felt they had to wear a Guy Fawkes mask in protesting against it.
Commenting on the demonstration by a group of people wearing white Guy Fawkes masks on Sunday, Abhisit said the government should not brush off the protesters as being the same old group of opponents.
“The government should consider what caused them to come out in protest,” Abhisit said.
He said that had the Pheu Thailed coalition government become involved with the country’s problems, Thailand would have remained peaceful and the government would have had the time to solve the country’s problems.
Abhisit said that if the government not tried to help former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and pushed for the amnesty bill, political tension would not have built up.
Abhisit also called on the prime minister to warn the red shirts to stop breaking the law by intimidating opponents. Abhisit said the red shirts did not hold symbolic demonstrations but they blocked roads and searched other people’s vehicles, which violated the country’s laws.
But Deputy Prime Minister Chalerm Yoobamrung dismissed the whitemask activists as yellowshirts who were using a new symbol to campaign.
“They are yellow shirts in disguise. They look familiar to me as they are similar to the people in photos taken by Special Branch police,” Chalerm said.
He said the government did not know the identity leaders of the new whitemasked group yet because the leaders did not dare to show themselves.
Chalerm claimed that he did not know who organised the campaigns by red masked people, which countered the rallies of the white-masked group.
He said he had nothing to do with the redshirt people and the redmasked group and added that he did not believe information from the Special Branch Police and the National Security Council because he had his own intelligence officers.
RELATED