Four people shot at Ramkhamhaeng University after clashes

Meanwhile, the Centre for the Administration of Peace and Order (CAPO) has announced the closure of Ramkhamhaeng Road from Ramkhamhaeng to Lam Sali Intersection, after violence in the area.

 

Earlier in the afternoon, dozens of protesters in an anti-red shirt rally harassed men near the university by blowing whistles at them. The red shirts are holding a rally to support the government at the stadium.

Some protesters beat on a taxi transporting red shirts with their fists and sticks and later some protesters threw rocks and beat a passing public bus.

A group of men also showed their opposition to the reds by setting a red T-shirt on fire, then stamping on it. 

These incidents prompted RU rector Assoc Prof Wuttisak Larpcharoensap to order all the protesting RU students to go back into the university compound. 

The rector said a number of men on motorcycles from the stadium had provoked the protesters earlier. 

There was a fistfight and one student got minor injury, according to a reporter with the pro-Democrats’ Blue Sky TV network at the scene.

Hundreds of Ramkhamhaeng University students yesterday joined in an anti-red shirts rally in front of the university, after a female student was attacked by the red shirts because she wore a whistle necklace.

The protesters set up stage at about noon. After representatives from Hua Mark and Wang Thonglang police stations came to receive their petition on the case and protesters were seeing them off, a fistfight between two men and a group of the protesters began. Protest leaders and police tried to break them up.

While inbound Ramkhamhaeng Soi 61 had been already blocked, police later set up barricades to separate the two groups. 

Meanwhile, red-shirts from several provinces were mobilised yesterday to join the Bangkok rally, including from Udon Thani, Nakhon Ratchasima, Kalasin, Pathum Thani and Phitsanulok. 

Red-shirt leader Thida Thawornseth yesterday told a pro-government rally at Rajamangala Stadium that the red shirts should not allow the protesters to overthrow an elected government.

More protesters coming

Udon Thani red-shirt leader Kwanchai Praipana, who is bringing 1,500 people on board 20 buses to Bangkok, claimed that former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra on Friday phoned and asked him to mobilise supporters. 

A leading red-shirt in Nakhon Ratchasima’s Muang district, Somphot Prasartthai, said at least 1,500 reds from Muang district were registered to board 15 buses and 20 vans. 

He said that at least 13,000 people from the province's 32 districts would be mobilised to Bangkok and would remain until they had victory over the anti-government protesters. He said they would not use violence but were keen to show that there were as many people in support of the government. 

Kalasin red-shirts also yesterday mobilised 3,000 people to support the Yingluck government along with other reds in Bangkok, Kalasin area 3 red-shirt coordinator Pian Donpanya said.

In Phitsanulok, 20 buses carrying over 500 red-shirts departed at 9am to join the Bangkok rally, while 1,500 reds were coming from Muang district in Pathum Thani also.

Suthep Thaugsuban, key leader of the anti-Thaksin regime campaign, has called for more supporters to come to Bangkok particularly from the South. 

In Satun’s Muang district, former People’s Alliance for Democracy protester Udomsri Chantharassami hosted a “tea party campaign to aid the nation”, serving people with “Patongko” deep-fried dough sticks, fermented rice noodles and rice noodle with coconut milk at a field in tambon Khlong Khud, to raise funds for her group’s travel expenses to join the Bangkok rally. And inChumphon, demonstrators outside city hall said they had prepared 15 buses to take volunteers to join the Bangkok rally.