Red shirt deadline for Thai PM's resignation expires
Rising tensions in Bangkok as deadline set by 150,000 protestors for Thai prime minister's resignation expires
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Monday, 15, Mar 2010 05:30
By Matthew Champion.
A deadline set by 150,000 anti-government protestors in Bangkok for the Thai prime minister to resign and call new elections has passed amid rising tensions.
Yesterday tens of thousands of demonstrators, commonly known as the red shirts, marched in the Thai capital demanding Abhisit Vejjajiva dissolve parliament by noon on Monday (05:00 GMT).
But Mr Abhisit, speaking from a military base outside Bangkok, said he would remain in office.
"The protesters have demanded that I dissolve the house before midday today, but the coalition parties agree the demand cannot be met," he said.
"Elections must be held under common rules and genuine calm. We have to listen to other people's voices, not just the protesters."
Tens of thousands of soldiers and police have been deployed in Bangkok in response to the protestors, largely made up of supporters of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and known officially as the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship.
Mr Thaksin was ousted in 2006 in a bloodless coup but his supporters, drawn largely from Thailand's poorer, rural northern and southern provinces, claim the current administration assumed power illegally.
In late 2008 a mass protest by anti-Thaksin yellow shirt protestors saw Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi airport taken over, with thousands of tourists stranded as a result.
And last April in the last major protest by the red shirt movement, at least two people were killed and 120 injured as security forces fired tear gas and rubber bullets.
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