Thai Authorities Fire Tear Gas At Demonstrators
Anti-government protesters around Government House in Bangkok resumed battles with riot police on Monday (December 2), renewing efforts to bring down the government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra.
The Thai opposition leader has given Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra two days to resign as anti-government protests spiral further out of control.
The protesters had set Sunday (December 1) as 'Victory Day' to oust the government but failed to achieve their goal of seizing the prime minister's office at Government House or occupying state buildings, despite intense clashes with riot police.
Police mostly held their lines, firing repeated rounds of tear gas and using water cannons against 30,000 protesters, many of whom hurled rocks and petrol bombs. Yingluck was forced to flee a police compound to an undisclosed location.
On Monday, protesters moved barrels of water between the police barricade and themselves at Government House, picking up canisters as they are shot over and dropping them into the water to minimize the smoke. Similar battles were reported around Metropolitan Police department.
The violence is the latest dramatic turn in a conflict pitting Bangkok's urban middle class and royalist elite against the mostly poor, rural supporters of Yingluck and her brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, a populist former prime minister ousted in a 2006 military coup.
Yingluck, Thailand's first female prime minister, has called for talks with the protesters to end the protests, which have been joined by the opposition Democrats, Thailand's oldest political party.
Presented by Adam Justice
Read more: https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/thailand-protests-suthep-thaugsuban-yingluck-shinawatra-meeting-526630