Red-shirts pressure Thai government to amend lese majeste law

BANGKOK, May 22 (TNA) - Red-shirt demonstrators who support exiled ex-Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra rallied at Bangkok's Government House Tuesday to demand amendment to Section 112 or the lese majeste law of the Criminal Code and amnesty for people affected by the law. The about 80 red-shirt people, who showed up in the name of a peace-oriented democracy-promotion group, submitted a letter to both Prime Minister Shinawatra and the Thai Cabinet to demand that the government pass a law to offer amnesty to those convicted and prosecuted under Section 112 of the Criminal Code. The red-shirts claimed that a number of people were prosecuted with the law and deprived of their release on bail, and that some of them were old and ill but they could not seek outside medical treatment because their release on bail were banned. Police Major Sa-ngiam Samranrat, who is attached to Prime Minister’s Secretariat, said when receiving the letter from the demonstrators that actually defendants on lese majeste cases have the right to seek temporary release, and that he will try to coordinate the matter to help people presently detained to seek their temporary release, acknowledging, however, that the government is now to finish constitutional amendment first. (TNA)