Anti-government Thai protestors make 'blood sacrifice'
Protestors in Thailand fill thousands of vials with their own blood before spilling them before government building
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Tuesday, 16, Mar 2010 06:01
By Matthew Champion.
Thai protestors demanding the dissolution of parliament have fulfilled a pledge to spill hundreds of gallons of their own blood before the gates of Government House in Bangkok.
The demonstrators, known as the red shirts, hope the "blood sacrifice" will put more pressure on prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to resign, dissolve parliament and call new elections.
On Tuesday nurses drew blood from thousands of protestors, who were hoping to collect one million cubic cm of blood.
Doctors have expressed concern at the protest, which is being carried out upon demonstrators who have spent days in the heat without sleep.
Ur Ubonwon Charoonruangrit of the Thai Red Cross Society said that the amount of blood being drawn could "save many lives" if donated.
Mr Vejjajiva has so far resisted demands to step down.
"A decision cannot be made between protesters and the government, because it is related to the whole country," he told national television on Tuesday.
The protestors, officially known as the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship, are largely made up of supporters of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Up to 150,000 of them have been marching in Bangkok since Sunday.
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.