Red-shirts rally to mark 2nd anniversary of political violence

BANGKOK, May 19 (TNA) - Thailand's red-shirt demonstrators, aligned with exiled ex-Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and the Pheu Thai Party-led government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, began their mass rally at the Ratchaprasong Intersection in the heart of Bangkok Saturday morning to mark the second anniversary of their group's bloody clashes with security forces of the the previous Democrat Party-led government, killing dozens of people. The red-clad demonstrators have set up their rally stage at the middle of the Ratchaprasong Intersection, where stalls have also been set on footpaths to sell food and political symbolic products, including posters and CVDs, as more red-shirts were pouring to the area to join main activities set to start from this afternoon onward. A number of police have been deployed at the red-shirt rally site and adjacent areas to maintain peace and order and the police forces have already closed Ratchadamri Road, from Ratchaprasong to Pratunam Intersections and advised motorists to avoid using all roads near the two intersections. Thaksin was said to phone in later Saturday to address his red-clad supporters at the Ratchaprasong Intersection main rally site, where red-shirts' months-long encampment ended on May 20, 2010 with widespread bloody chaos and arsons in the capital and other provinces. Meanwhile, Thailand’s Department of Special Investigation or DSI has already concluded its investigative report on a total of 89 deaths in the 2010 political unrest, indicating that both state authorities and the then red-shirt protesters are responsible for 22 and 12 deaths respectively. DSI chief Tharit Pengdit told a press conference on Friday that 174 out of 266 cases involving the red-shirt political rally in 2010 have been finalized and submitted to the Metropolitan Police Division, and that his agency has found that 16 deaths were caused by state officers but the police requested for further probe into six more deaths; while the causes of other 55 deaths have not been concluded. (TNA)