Buddhist Celebrities: Tensions Escalated In Bangkok

Finally after nearly 4 weeks of protest, the government started to take some action. Earlier this morning, government ordered crackdown at Rajchaprasong Intersection to prevent the Reds from marching to 11 routes around the city as have been planned.

Troops and trucks were deployed to the intersection where the trucks were used to block all roads leading to the intersection. Riot police with truncheong and shields were confronted by an angry crowd of Reds. The Reds threw bottles and tried to push the police away.

Meanwhile a large group of Reds have gathered in front of the Democrat Party building, threatening to strom the building if their counterparts were not allowed to march to the planned 11 routes.

Short thereafter, the Reds made another U-turn by cancelling their planned to march to the 11 routes. In an effort to avoid any confrontation with the Reds, the police agreed not to disperse the crowd from the Ratchaprasong Intersection and began retreating. However their plan to cancel the marching did not last long and was soon reverted. They decided to defy the police and marched to the 11 routes which they had planned and cancelled prior to this.

Meanwhile several unwanted incidents happened earlier today, pointing to a highly possible violence if the government failed to contain the protest.

(a) --A homemade bomb was spotted by a road sweeper at a the main gate of Chulalongkorn University at 6.30am. It was left inside a plastic bag near a roadside bench of the city administration, which is bout 10 metres away from the main gate.
Bomb disposal police checked and found that the bomb was made of fertilisers and diesel oil and some explosives.Police said the bomb's fuse had already been lit but it failed to ignite the bomb, which was not fully assembled.

(b) A woman was rescued by police after angry protesters surrounded her car when she tried to slam her Toyota Vios at red-shirt people in front of the Bangkok Bank on Silom Road at 2:20 pm.She was driving towards the group of demonstrators on the road, prompting them to rush to surround her car.Police rushed in to help and keep the protesters away from the car and the woman sped away

(c) a couple, in a pick up truck, crashed into the red rally on Silom road. Angry protesters attacked the vehicle and caused significant damages to the windows. Authorities rushed to the scene to prevent violence from erupting.

(d) A grenade exploded outside the Democrat party headquarters, mildly injuring two policemen. The grenade was fired and landed in the parking lot behing the building.

With tensions seemed to escalate further, Abhisit went on air again. He told Thais that he has been following the protest closely and hoped to bring peace back to Thais again. He accused the Reds of distorting information, referring to an audio clip where Abhisit was alledged to have said that he would use harsh mean against the protesters. He also said that the Reds have overstepped the boundary of the law that allows them to demonstrate peacefully and reiterated that the Internal Security Act has granted the authorities the right to disperse the protesters.

Many businesses including Siam Paragon remained closed. Four Seasons hotel did not allow tourists to check in for security reason while the Hyatt Hotel was shut down.

Some of the protesters were unperturbed by what was going on in the protest, they preferred to enjoy themselves and shopping in one of the malls.