Torneyboy Posted April 16, 2009 Report Share Posted April 16, 2009 Sadly looks that way... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Torneyboy Posted April 16, 2009 Report Share Posted April 16, 2009 ..or shirtlifter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Torneyboy Posted April 16, 2009 Report Share Posted April 16, 2009 ..And to many Thais in Thailand.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mentors Posted April 16, 2009 Report Share Posted April 16, 2009 Thai police probe reports of 'Red Shirt' deaths BANGKOK (AFP) â?? Thai police said Thursday they are probing reports that two men whose bodies were found gagged and bound in Bangkok's main river were anti-government protesters who rallied here this week. Violent street protests raged in Bangkok Monday, leaving two dead and 123 injured, but so far there have been no confirmed fatalities among the "Red Shirt" demonstrators loyal to ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra. The new administration of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has been intent on avoiding fatalities, which would be highly damaging politically. The two dead reported earlier were local residents who clashed with the protesters. The Bangkok Post quoted a colleague of the dead men found Wednesday morning, who were both security guards, as saying they had set off on a motorbike Monday to join the mass rally outside Abhisit's offices at Government House. Their bodies were found floating in the Chao Phraya river, with their hands tied behind their back. They had been badly beaten and had head injuries. However, police said there was no confirmation the pair were at the rally and that robbery was a more likely motive, as their motorcycle was missing. "The official investigation has not yet found their deaths are related to the political rally," police investigator Lieutenant Colonel Virat Petcharat told AFP http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5h0TvDRcd90oANWzoWGcHE0jXNHqw Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TroyinEwa/Perv Posted April 16, 2009 Report Share Posted April 16, 2009 However, police said there was no confirmation the pair were at the rally and that robbery was a more likely motive, as their motorcycle was missing. Anybody else see anything wrong with this or is it me? It must be me. First, how do they know it's missing? There are umpteen million motorcycles in Bangkok alone. How do they know they even had one? Key in a pocket, maybe? I'll give them that but still to say robbery is probably the motive cuz the cops can't find the motorcycle is swift police work. Second, how do they know they weren't anti-government protesters? No red shirts? Brilliant. Couldn't be then. If "The official investigation has not yet found their deaths are related to the political rally" then they must have questioned every red-shirt and shown their pictures to come to that conclusion. Once again, spectacular work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flashermac Posted April 16, 2009 Report Share Posted April 16, 2009 It's you. Remember the body of the dead Yellow Shirt that was found stuffed in a container at Don Muang after everything was over. The loonies kill each other with as much glee as they kill anyone else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mentors Posted April 16, 2009 Report Share Posted April 16, 2009 Thai NGO center for potential disappearance of protesters set up Thailand's pro-democracy groups, led by the Student Federation of Thailand (SFT), announced on Wednesday an establishment of a center for reporting the disappearance of protesters after the recent scattered rioting due to anti-government rallies. The center is to cover the possible appearance of people, who involved with the anti-government protests, starting from April 8 to 14 in capital Bangkok, Suwalak Lam-u-bon, SFT executive director said during a press conference. Based on evidences from pictures, video, and news reports by foreign media, it is possible some anti-government protesters might have died, while some others might have disappeared during the Thai army crackdown on the protesters, Suwalak said. "So, relatives of the affected protesters can tell information concerning this to our center, or appeal through the center," said Suwalak. Meanwhile, the SFT has viewed that Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva should resign, or the government should dissolve the House as responsibility for using violence to disperse the protesters recently, said Suwalak. "The SFT has disagreed with the violence applied to deal with the protesters, recently," said Suwalak. In a related development, Thailand's major opposition Puea ThaiParty disclosed on Wednesday preliminarily over 30 protesters were feared of disappearance during the recent political chaos based on information reported to the Party by relatives and friends of the protesters. "However, we have not yet blamed any side since we need to further investigate. Preliminarily, it is possible some people might have really disappeared, while the others might have been traveling to enjoy the Songkran Festival after the protests ended," Party spokesman Prompong Nopparit told Xinhua. The Songkran Festival is Thailand's traditional new year, starting from April 13 to 15. The Puea Thai Party will raise this issue during a meeting of the key members of the Party on Thursday, said Prompong. Since Sunday afternoon, the Thai government has declared a state of emergency in capital Bangkok and some districts of five nearby provinces, citing escalating violence due to the scattered-anti-government rallies. Prior to the state of emergency's declaration, on Saturday the anti-government protesters stormed into the venue of the then-ongoing ASEAN summit at beach resort Pattaya and related summits, resulting in the cancellation of all of the summits. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-04/15/content_11191206.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flashermac Posted April 16, 2009 Report Share Posted April 16, 2009 So tell me ... how SHOULD one disperse violent protestors? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TroyinEwa/Perv Posted April 16, 2009 Report Share Posted April 16, 2009 Don't cha know??? Just get a magazine and shoo shoo shoo them away. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mentors Posted April 16, 2009 Report Share Posted April 16, 2009 Bangkok's first casualty of political war As troops and antigovernment protestors clashed on Bangkokâ??s streets again this week, a furious battle also played out in the media over casualties. Government spokespersons and army officers insisted that bullets had not been fired into the crowds. Their opponents said the opposite. Soldiers had at times pointed their weapons at people, and some of the red-shirted demonstrators had been shot, but there were few reliable details of who was hurt, how, where and why. Staff at the prime ministerâ??s office blamed Red Shirts on motorbikes for a melee with local residents that left two dead. Other sources were less certain about the identities of the protagonists, but doubtful voices were drowned out as local outlets obligingly reported the official version. Meanwhile, emailed narratives of battles around the city had it that the Red Shirtsâ?? rivals were in some areas backing up the army, but there was no immediate evidence to support this claim either. What all this goes to show is not which side is to blame for the street blockades and bloodshed of the last few days, but how difficult it has become to believe Thailandâ??s media. Since 2006, when domestic news agencies and many overseas ones fell over each other to enthuse about the armyâ??s latest power grab, the biases of newspapers, magazines and broadcasters have become more pronounced, their coverage more partisan, and their opinion-makers seemingly more sure of themselves even as things get less certain. In normal times, the impoverished domestic journalism which has become a hallmark of Bangkok has made following current affairs there difficult; with the city under siege and a state of emergency declared, it has made following them all but impossible. Blinded by seething hatred of ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, many journalists have transformed him from the authoritarian bully that he is into a superhuman bogeyman on whom everything and anything can be blamed. Thaksin obviously provoked his supporters to violence this week, as he has done in the past. There is no need for the point to be made repeatedly. What is needed is to situate what has happened in a meaningful trajectory with which to make sense of it and to figure out what might occur next. But instead of offering useful analysis, most newspaper space has been taken up with headlines jeering at the Red Shirtsâ?? failed putsch accompanied by content-free commentary that has at best been infantile and at worst shameful. A columnist for the Bangkok Post shrilled that Thaksin was responsible for turning the city into a war zone and for the death of a young man whose brother she heard speak on television. â??Does Thaksin have a soul?â? she cried out theatrically. The paperâ??s main editorial was little better, branding the former prime ministerâ??s crimes â??heinousâ? and heaping praise on the incumbent, Abhisit Vejjajiva, who came to power on the back of more prolonged violence of the same type last year. By the time the Post was published, the government had closed the satellite station that the protest organizers were using for increasingly vociferous broadcasts. Whether or not the shutdown can be justified, the same has not been done to the Yellow Shirtsâ?? mouthpiece. It continues to churn out propaganda even as the leaders of last yearâ??s Government House and airport takeovers run around on bail, while a number of their red-shirted counterparts have either been locked up or are in hiding. Perhaps the yellow-shirted bosses have not felt the need to go on the run because no one is actually chasing them. And while the authorities have moved against their adversariesâ?? use of modern technology, they have also been working overtime against sources of news that might have filled some of the gaps, corrected some of the errors, and exposed some of the lies in the big media and authorized accounts. The Prachatai website has been on the back foot since its director was hit last month with a volley of ambiguous charges over supposedly unlawful comments that readers â?? not the service itself â?? had posted. It continues to put out news and views that cannot be found elsewhere, such as a recent careful critique of the prejudiced and simplistic television coverage of the newest battles in Bangkok. But its weekly radio feature has fallen silent. Many bloggers have been trying their best to keep abreast of things, but they canâ??t make up for the paucity of trustworthy periodicals and professional broadcasters. The bureaucracy has been fighting a war against them too, blocking the domestic audience from reading thousands of web pages since the start of this year alone on spurious grounds relating to the monarchy or national security. A few foreign correspondents who have worked on and in Thailand for some years have filed informed and critical stories of what has been going on, but they are in the minority, and their reporting does not have much reach back inside the country where it would count the most. During Thaksinâ??s time as prime minister, police and bureaucrats routinely harassed journalists and media advocates: searching premises, issuing warrants and making threats. He and his government rightly attracted censure for their efforts to intimidate and silence critics, and for their misuse of state agencies toward these ends. But in Thaksinâ??s time there was at least a struggle for freedom of opinion and expression that extended across different parts of the media. Since 2006, it has fallen to small committed groups like Prachatai to keep that effort alive, often at considerable risk to those involved. None of the mainstream print and broadcast outlets can today be counted as defenders of the right to speak freely. This last week is proof of that. â??The first casualty when war comes,â? U.S. Senator Hiriam Johnson once famously said, â??is truth.â? While both sides in the latest battle for Thailandâ??s future were arguing furiously about how many lives and limbs they had claimed, the first casualty went uncounted. Its passing is now more obvious than ever, its presence sorely missed. http://www.upiasia.com/Human_Rights/2009/04/16/bangkoks_first_casualty_of_political_war/8748/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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