Tens of thousands of protesters have defied orders to leave the Thai capital's main shopping district despite threats of mass arrests, upping the ante on the fourth week of a bold street rally to press for fresh elections.
The government said the red-shirted protesters who overran a district housing sleek upmarket department stores and five-star hotels yesterday could each face up to a year in jail and a 20,000 baht (€460) fine if they do not leave.
The gathering was in clear violation of a tough Internal Security Act imposed last month, said the Centre for Administration of Peace and Order, a special government body set up to keep security during the protests.
‘The blockade of roads around the intersection is an exercise of public rights beyond what the constitution provides,’ Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said after talks between authorities and the protesters yielded nothing substantive.
The more than 50,000 protesters also ignored a deadline yesterday to leave the area where Central World, the second-largest shopping complex in Southeast Asia, and half a dozen other big malls and retailers shut their doors in response to threats by the protesters to stay for days.
The mostly rural and working-class demonstrators have said they will not leave until the government dissolves parliament and calls elections.
The 'red shirts’, supporters of twice-elected and now fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, say Mr Abhisit has no popular mandate and came to power illegitimately, heading a coalition the military cobbled together after courts dissolved a pro-Thaksin party that led the previous government.
Mr Abhisit says he was voted into office by the same parliament that picked his Thaksin-allied predecessors.
