Thailand warns people to stay away from protests
Print Edition
THAILAND’S caretaker government said yesterday that it would tighten security to prevent clashes that could arise between the two sides in an escalating political crisis, and warned people to stay away from protest sites for their own safety.
The announcement was broadcast on television as pro-government and anti-government protesters held competing rallies in Bangkok over the weekend. The two groups were several kilometers apart, but concerns of violence have emerged following a court’s ouster of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra last week.
Senior security official Tharit Pengdit warned that if the anti-government movement carries out an attempt to appoint an unelected prime minister, it would ignite anger from government supporters that “could definitely spread to clashes and could eventually lead to a civil war.” The comment echoed one made a day earlier by the head of the pro-government Red Shirt movement.
“It is therefore necessary for CAPO to escalate law enforcement to a stricter level, to solve problems that will arise in the near future,” said Tharit, an executive for the government’s security Center of Administration for Peace and Order. “We are asking people to stay away from the protesters and ... to avoid the protest sites for their own safety.”
He did not specify how or where security would be tightened.
Two people were injured late on Saturday when unknown assailants fired two grenades at Government House, the prime minister’s office compound, where anti-government protesters were camped, said police Colonel Kamthorn Auicharoen. Officials vacated the compound months ago due to the protests launched against Yingluck in November.
It was the latest in a series of grenade attacks and drive-by shootings that have left hundreds of people injured since Thailand’s political crisis escalated in November. Both sides accuse the other of orchestrating the violence.
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