Some radio stations still broadcasting
Some red-shirt radio stations have continued broadcasting despite orders nearly a week ago to censor and shut them down, thanks to loyal listeners, sympathisers and supportive communities coming to their defence.
Krom Premphon, a taxi driver, said yesterday that soldiers had made five attempts but failed to take one red-shirt community radio station off the air. "Police are also our informants," he said.
This allowed them to barricade the station in time, he said. "I guarantee you that they can't enter the area. At minimum [the soldiers] will face stone pestles and boiling water thrown at them [from the nearby flats]. I help them out as a guard at night.
"Frankly speaking, I think the government should allow diverse views to be heard. There're only two [red-shirt] stations left in our area."
Under the state of emergency, Deputy PM Suthep Thaugsuban ordered a crackdown on all red-shirt media, whom the government accused of spreading misinformation.
Noi, a 30-something, well-educated red shirt, said the persecution was making more red shirts upset, because they feel they are not being treated equally. "I can't take this. Can you? They're trying to muzzle our media through all means," she said.
One red-shirt radio station kept attacking the government for its censorship attempts.
"Now we don't have many [red-shirt] media left. Only a few community radio stations are still on air. The government is feeding us with one-sided news and fanning more divisiveness in Thai society."
US-based Human Rights Watch issued a statement on Monday condemning the censorship of red-shirt media and called for an immediate end to the suppression. The "government greatly undermined media freedom and freedom of expression ... Human Rights Watch calls on the government to immediately lift the censorship and other restraints on the rights to freedom of expression of online and broadcast media."
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The government is feeding us
The government is feeding us with one-sided news and fanning more divisiveness in Thai society.
That's certainly true. It is clear that the government thinks it's crushing people who not only can't fight back but who don't count anyway.
The government are the ones building up rancor and hatred of the government.
Everything negative that's happened since the censorship and brutality began is in direct reaction to the unbelievably provocative and high-handed actions undertaken by this de facto government.
I hope it is not too much longer before it is replaced by a de jure regime, chosen by the people in free elections.
The Bangkok Post has a piece
The Bangkok Post has a piece of government propaganda up entitled The Hunt for Red Assassins. That headline is on the frontpage, in fact it's the title of today's Bangkok Post online!
Following the link you'll find, not a story about a search for who assassinated the 16 Redshirts, but an article entitled Govt faces difficult task locating killers "detailing" the government's search for "unidentified men".
In other words every unarmed Redshirt who defended him or herself in the face of the military onslaught is a "terrorist".
The government is running wild and the Bangkok Post, as always, is its drum-beater, it's house organ. The Redshirts certainly seem to be all that stands between freedom and full-blown fascism in Thailand.
The Democrats won 165 out of 480 seats in the last election. In Thailand that's an absolute majority. No one else counts at all.