Anti-govt protesters vow to ‘go after’ Thai PM Yingluck

Buoyed by a court order curbing the use of force against them, anti-government protesters in Thailand on Wednesday said they would ‘go after’ embattled Premier Yingluck Shinawatra, a day after a police crackdown left five people dead and dozens injured.

Defiant protesters in a convoy of 200 cars, led by protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban of the People’s Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC), surrounded the office of the Permanent Secretary of Defence in northern Bangkok, which Yingluck and her cabinet have been using as a temporary office since protesters shut down the Government House in December. Suthep said that demonstrators would follow Yingluck wherever she goes and would target businesses owned by her wealthy family.

‘Wherever she is, wherever she sleeps, we will go after her,’ Suthep told the crowd. ‘(We) must intensify our fight and we will attack Shinawatra businesses and their funding sources.’ 

The move came after the caretaker government mobilised thousands of policemen to disperse anti-government protesters at several sites across the city. Also on Wednesday, a Civil Court ruled that the government had the authority to impose an emergency decree during a critical situation, but not to the extent of using it to break up the PDRC’s peaceful and unarmed demonstrations.

The court prohibited the government and the Centre for Maintenance of Peace and Order (CMPO) from breaking up the PDRC’s rallies and from seizing the protesters’ equipment.But the court said the government could impose the emergency decree, a special law enabling the administrative branch to resolve problems during a critical situation, though with discretion, the Bangkok Post reported.

Meanwhile, a criminal court approved arrest warrants against five leaders of the anti-government PDRC for blocking the advance voting on 26 January.

The protesters backed by the main opposition Democrat Party have been rallying in Bangkok since November to try to oust Yingluck, whom they view as a proxy for her elder brother Thaksin Shinawatra, a former premier who was toppled in a military coup in 2006.