A Tale of Two Protests: Ukraine and Thailand – Part II

Indeed, Thaksin’s "red shirt" mobs had used violence and intimidation to disrupt and shut down an HIV/AIDS awareness march organized by homosexual groups in the northern city of Chiang Mai, a regime stronghold. "Out in Perth" reported in their article, " Chiang Mai Pride Shut Down by Protests as Police Watch On ," that:  Organisers were forced to call off Chiang Mai’s planned second annual Gay Pride Parade on February 21 after harassment from the Rak Chiang Mai 51 political group.  Dressed in their trademark red shirts, members of Rak Chiang Mai 51 locked parade participants into the compound where they were gathering, throwing fruit and rocks and yelling abuse through megaphones.  150 police officers looked on but did nothing to intervene during the four and a half hour stand off.  Fearing escalating violence, organisers eventually called off the parade.  Ginger Norwood from the newly formed Sao-Sao-Et network says the decision to call off the parade was a difficult but necessary one.  ‘The red shirts continued to threaten violence if the parade started and would not leave the blockaded area as long as there was a possibility that the parade might happen,’ she said.‘The inaction of the police further added to the tense situation, because the organisers had no confidence the police would intervene or provide any kind of protection if the red shirt protesters attacked parade goers.’  The action against the Gay Pride Parade had been planned weeks before the event, with Rak Chiang Mai 51 using a local radio station to rally people and driving a truck around the city centre the day before, recruiting people to join their protest. When asked what would happen if march organizers decided to ever hold another legally sanctioned event in Chiang Mai, regime demagogue  Kanyapak (DJ Aom) Maneejak stated :  If in the future they wish to have a parade they can send us their proposal and if we think that it is polite then we will allow it, and even promote it.  Evidently, an already approved event must also be cleared by self-appointed arbiters wearing similar colored shirts who use violence and intimidation to crush opposing views – a tale that should sound sadly familiar as we recall the history of John McCain’s Svoboda friends in Ukraine.  It would appear then, that US Senator John McCain and the rest of the West who embrace the Nazis of Kiev, have decided to oppose the anti-regime protesters in Bangkok because their sort of regime is already in power in Thailand

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A Tale of Two Protests: Ukraine and Thailand – Part II