Thai police have fired water cannon, rubber bullets and tear gas at protesters in Bangkok for a second consecutive day as demonstrators rallied against the government and its handling of the coronavirus crisis.
Hundreds sought to rally near the residence of prime minister Prayuth Chan-ocha to demand his resignation for government corruption and mismanagement of the pandemic.
Reuters reports protesters threw paint at a line of riot police who confronted them as they tried to march on the PM’s home and police responded with tear gas, rubber bullets and charging to disperse them.
Barbed wire fences and shipping containers were used to block the road. The Associated Press reports that a group also gathered in the nearby Din Daeng area, firing slingshots and hurling firecrackers and small explosive devices called ping-pong bombs. They also set fire to a vehicle that burned fiercely beneath a nearby elevated roadway.
Earlier protesters burnt an effigy of a Thai judge who had denied bail to leaders of past protests. “Police are not our enemies. Our true enemy is the government,” one protester told the rally.
Police also used tear gas, water cannon and rubber bullets to violently break up a similar protest yesterday, when thousands of demonstrators drove in a convoy of cars and motorcycles through Bangkok. Some core leaders of the movement controversially remain in detention, but the movement has resurged.
“The protesters repeatedly attacked police by throwing firecrackers, ping pong bombs, and (using) slingshots,” royal Thai police deputy spokesman Kissana Phathanacharoen said.
The PM, Prayuth, has been criticised for a slow vaccination campaign – using jabs produced by a company owned by the king that has no prior experience of making vaccines – and a failure to quell Thailand’s worst Covid-19 wave yet, which has accounted for the bulk of the country of 70m’s more than 788,000 cases and 6,700 deaths.
Though the demonstrations have focused on Covid, they are part of a wider push for sweeping political change that includes Prayuth’s resignation, a new constitution and – most contentious of all – fundamental reform of the powerful but opaque monarchy, AP reports. Financial hardship from restrictions have fuelled public anger over these grievances.
