Red shirts blame media censorship for their continued presence in Rajprasong area
Despite the bid for reconciliation by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, the continued censorship and harassment of red-shirt media is a key factor why the protesters and their leaders have not left the Rajprasong area yet.
A host on the red shirts' FM 101.25 community radio, which is relayed through 200 stations nationwide, received an arrest warrant on Thursday and reported to police yesterday.
Supporters of the station expressed outraged yesterday morning as they called phone-in programmes to denounce Abhisit as a liar.
"This government lies and uses verbal trickery to survive on a daily basis," one caller asserted.
Radio host Pongamporn Bandasak, who was issued an arrest warrant, yesterday morning told listeners to remain calm but be ready to defend the station.
Elsewhere, the online newspaper Prachatai.com, which is deemed sympathetic to the red shirts, has been blocked repeatedly by the government.
Sawatree Suksri, a law lecturer at Thammasat University and an expert on cyberspace-related law, denounced the rampant blocking of websites under the emergency decree at a seminar on Thursday and claimed some 400 websites might have been "secretly" blocked by the Information and Communications Technology Ministry on a daily basis.
Abhisit has so far refused to say when the red-shirt media that have been blocked or shut down, including the People's Channel, would be returned. Others say the continued heavy deployment of armed soldiers and the lack of a concrete schedule to lift the emergency decree - as well as the continued threat to use force to disperse the crowd - is not fostering a climate of reconciliation.
On Thursday, some troops were reportedly closing in on protesters, while yesterday morning saw a helicopter flying over the crowd.
For hard-core red-shirt protesters like Noi, who described herself as a "well-educated civil servant", the reconciliation gesture by the PM, including the road map, is less than sufficient.
"It may be good that we're not dispersing, because those responsible for the April 10 killing have not been brought to justice yet," she said.
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the Reds, via Pravit: Abhisit
This is why I offered my "translation" of Abhisit via BPundit. Abhisit always says the opposite of what is spun in the media. Or the media always spins the opposite of what Abhisit is saying.
Actually, it's the willing suspension of disbelief on the part of Bangkokians, not at all unlike the collective self-delusion that made Barack Obama, the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate slash War Criminal, POTUS.
In this case Abhisit actually promised that censorship would continue : "While there will be independence in presenting news, it must not cause conflicts within the country."
The first clause is "the news" as published by the media, immediately negated by the second clause, unremarked by the MSM.
He flat-out lied about his government's intentions : "Many protesters may have experienced injustice, lack of opportunities, or discrimination. Therefore, what we must do is not allow for there to be injustices as in the previous government."
The Emergency Decree remains in full-force, Bangkok remains occupied by tens of thousands of armed troops, the reds remain under the gun.
Abhisit is wrong about Seh
Abhisit is wrong about Seh Daeng being the origin of "terrorist" events. he, Thaksin and reds have nothing to gain from killings or disrupt roadmap... its (yellow related) military!
I cant see that the redshirts can leave the rally site while the military are still interfering in business and politics in Thailand
it will take a hero, Abhisit? to make the army return to barracks and stop their interference
if not the reds will have to wait for an election and hopefully a hero will be brought to power
its the military that are the problem not the solution
I think it is clear that
I think it is clear that Abhisit has no intention at all of honouring the dissolution/election timetable; his backers at the [..] have no intention whatever of relinquishing their hold on power so we ought to spend our time thinking not about elections, but tactics, because the ‘road-map’ is a tactic not a strategy for Abhisit. Turkeys do not vote for an early Xmas.
The way it will go is this: (new post following)
[continued] 1. They will
[continued] 1. They will search for a number of reasons not to dissolve the Parliament. The list of reasons he could use has already been provided in the form of his list of 5 preconditions to a dissolution, so this is where it will come from. All of these 5 preconditions are so deliberately vague and woolly that they could, and will, mean whatever he wishes them to mean come the day.
2. Abhsit and his backers represented by Prem will reinforce his position in several major respects, not least among which is getting the new Army chief in post. He will be decidedly more hawkish than Anupong, and is pretty much guaranteed to do the bidding of Abhisit and the [..] in declaring war on the Thai people.
3. They will pick off the leaders of the UDD one by one by stealth such that when he refuses to dissolve the Parliament, the UDD will be in no position to rally effectively again. The foundations for this process have already been laid.
I don’t see any alternative to believing this is the real intent of Abhisit and the [..], to think otherwise is to simply be gullible.
The stakes have been pumped up far too high. Abhisit making this into a plot to overthrow the Monarchy will only have planted in the Thai mind that the Monarchy is not as universally revered as the propaganda machine would have it, and is actually feeling very vulnerable. Further, that many Thais are prepared to contemplate a Thai state without a monarchy, or as Kasit himself has suggested, with a greatly reformed monarchy. This was a very serious blunder but the genie is out of the bottle now. The bunker mentality of Abhisit and his backers on its own will guarantee that this is very far from being over, and the mendacity, double-speak and deception that Abhisit has practiced in domestic and foreign interactions since he rose to power through the chicanery of the [..], the army and the paid defection of the quisling Newin, guarantee that he should certainly not be trusted in this ‘road-map’. It is just an illusion, a misdirection, a deceitful illusion.
Abhisit is wrong about Seh
Abhisit is wrong about Seh Daeng being the origin of "terrorist" events. He, Thaksin and reds have nothing to gain from killings or disrupt roadmap... its (yellow related) military!
Voranai Vanijaka, an editor and spin-meister at the BPost, made the case this morning for the Yellow/No/Multi/Brown Shirts being behind the recent murders. Chamlong is prominently mentioned.
The far-right and the ultra-far-right are fighting for the loyalty of the minority of the country that cannot win an election, and they're thus both losing.
The Yellows are openly losing the sympathy of the "middle class" and so the minority behind the governing regime is splitting before our very eyes into two even smaller minorities.
Abhisit is very "photogenic". There are many, many people who want to like him. If he took the bull by the horns, embraced the dissolution and coming election and started to act like a democrat, to recenter himself around the problems and fortunes of the Thai people, the majority outside of Bangkok, he could have an interesting, a bright and productive future in Thai politics.
If he goes down with his minority... he'll remain the eminently forgettable pol he is today.
Hah. What do I know about Thai politics. I'm just another bozo with an internet connection.
The far-right and the
The far-right and the ultra-far-right are fighting for the loyalty of the minority of the country that cannot win an election, and they're thus both losing.
Yes, and what is more dangerous, they know they cannot win. I suspect Abhisit may be gambling on the succession issue coming to the forefront between now and November. Or perhaps, given the popularity issue, he is dreading it doing so.
The Yellows are openly losing the sympathy of the "middle class" and so the minority behind the governing regime is splitting before our very eyes into two even smaller minorities.
Agreed
Abhisit is very "photogenic". There are many, many people who want to like him. If he took the bull by the horns, embraced the dissolution and coming election and started to act like a democrat, to recenter himself around the problems and fortunes of the Thai people, the majority outside of Bangkok, he could have an interesting, a bright and productive future in Thai politics.
But he can't. He sold his ass to them in the big house on the hill, and he cannot un-sell it. The Sondhi message will be ringing loudly in Abhisit's ears. These relationships tend to be severed by a gun.
If he goes down with his minority... he'll remain the eminently forgettable pol he is today.
He really doesn't have the substance to be any more than a drone, plus I believe the wider world is awakening to the fact that what he says and what he does are separated by a huge reality gap. As many Thais are waking up.
Hah. What do I know about Thai politics. I'm just another bozo with an internet connection.
And an interest. That's important. Don't underestimate the value of farang values, investment and insights to Thais, Farang values, investment and insights are the only reason Thailand is not Laos, though at this rate, in another 10 years it may well be. Also remember that the Thai prai have much less resentment of farangs than the amart do.
Who was in the helicopter?
Who was in the helicopter?
This is the BPost picture
This is the BPost picture literally drawn of what the BPost says the UDD said : The Bangkok Post's "Red Map"
I assume the BPost is lying as usual and await confirmation.
Point four on the BPost's list requires Suthep (what about Abhisit?) to turn himself over to the police. The article spinning around this graphic has Suthep reporting to the DSI... which reports to the SLORC, I mean CRES... which reports to Suthep. An absurd and insulting piece of theater on its face.
Point five on the BPost's list has the PTV unfettered after the rally ends. And accepts a censorship "committee" over it's contents. This either a lie, wishful thinking on the part of the BPost, or "stupidity" bordering on treachery on the part of the UDD. I cannot imagine this to be the UDD position. A synchronous end to censorship of all media and the reds' rally, is more likely the reds' condition.
Point six on the BPost's list surely means an unconditional and simultaneous end to both the State of Emergency and the reds' rally. Of course the BPost spins otherwise:
Under the State of Emergency Thailand = Burma. I cannot imagine the reds' acceptance of the continued rule of the SLORC in Thailand.
Continued rally may defer
Continued rally may defer election, govt warns
The government yanks back the "offer" of an election, leaving the people to tumble to the ground just as they were sitting down to the "feast". What a surprise!
No elections. Military rule is here to stay. Welcome to Burma. Get used to it.
The official position of the de facto regime in Thailand.
It is about time the rest of
It is about time the rest of the world admits and acknowledges the reality of Thai politics.Abhisit and his coalition partners are not "Democrats" they are anti-Democrats.Who support military intevention in the Democratic process.Meanwhile UK has a new goverment,(Conservative lead I'm sorry to say),but if there is one tiny bit of light out of the hung parliment which has befallen the UK then it is allowance of the Lib Dems to gain a say in UK goverment policy. It is the Lib Dems foreign policy which stands head and shoulders above that of the previos Labour and Conservative administrations, and is much more human rights aware.Hopefully they can persuade their coalition partners to join with them in acknowledging and pressurising undemocratic juntas,autocracys and dictatorships.
I awaited a red version of
I awaited a red version of the red response to Abhisit's talk of an election following the BPost's "Red Map" poster. None was forthcoming. There were and are other fabrications of the red position by non-reds in the MSM.
I don't know it the reds have made a formal response which is purposefully not being reported or if they have not, but the MSM has stepped into the vacuum, real or manufactured, with its own fabrications.
Abhisit and the government seem to have yanked back any "commitment" to parliament dissolution, elections, and the end of the "state of emergency"
Normalcy is a continued state of emergency, i.e. military rule, and a pogram against all political opposition as depicted in the latest BP hate-poster : violators of the emergency decree, terrorists, and common criminals.
The reality of Thailand as another Burma looms ever larger each day.