<p>Anger, anxiety and fearless defiance filled the air as tens of thousands of red-shirted protesters at the Rajprasong intersection geared up for an all-out battle with the government's security forces.</p> <p>They learned in the early afternoon that their fellow protesters had clashed with soldiers at the other main protest site along Rajdamnoen Avenue and Phan Fa Bridge. By early evening, at least 83 had been injured.</p>

<p>A Japanese journalist working for Reuters was killed while a&nbsp;freelance photographer was injured when Red Shirt protesters and&nbsp;police-military units battled in Bangkok on 10 April 2010, media&nbsp;reports said.</p> <p>Reuters said its TV cameraman, Hiro Muramoto, 43 years old, died&nbsp;from a bullet wound in the chest. He was pronounced dead on arrival&nbsp;at Klang Hospital in Bangkok.</p>

<p>BANGKOK, Apr 9 (Asia Media Forum) &mdash; For press freedom advocates, it was bad enough, though not totally surprising, to hear that the government had shut down the opposition media amid the state of emergency in the Thai capital. But alarming to them is the gagging even of independent news sites.</p>

<p>Red-shirt media and those identified as sympathetic to red-shirt protesters suffered heavy censorship yesterday as the government exercised its power under the emergency decree to cut communication lines among the red shirts, leaving society with only what the state views as correct and appropriate.</p> <p>It was a bid to reduce the crowd - but it invited more red shirts to the main protest venue at Rajprasong intersection and elsewhere.</p>

<p>The Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA) expresses concern over the declaration of a State of Emergency in Bangkok, particularly in how the broad powers granted the military under such a declaration could render the free press and freedom of expression vulnerable to political and security objectives.</p>

<p>The Thai Journalists Association and Thailand Cable TV Association Thursday issued a joint statement to condemn the government's blockade of the PTV's satellite transmission and the closure of www.prachatai.com.</p>

<p>No crackdown plan, says PM; police wanted to warn about Security Act</p> <p>The deployment of riot police and soldiers to close in on the dwindling red shirts at Rajprasong Intersection yesterday morning led to a rapid and massive reinforcement of crowds.</p> <p class="rtecenter"> <object width="430" height="258.67"> <param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Piy4PkaHgfE&amp;color1=0xb1b1b1&amp;color2=0xcfcfcf&amp;hl=en_US&amp;feature=player_embedded&amp;fs=1" /> <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /> <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Piy4PkaHgfE&amp;color1=0xb1b1b1&amp;color2=0xcfcfcf&amp;hl=en_US&amp;feature=player_embedded&amp;fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="450" height="270.07"></embed></object></p>

<p>The conflict today is partly the result of the atrocious media, esp TV. The government's &quot;interference&quot; is not the only reason to blame. It is bad enough that the government have the full control of one TV channel with outcries only from a fraction of media professionals and none from media professional bodies. But the media professionals at major newspapers and other TV channels including the ThaiPBS do it out of their own biases and horrible lack of professionalism. The government may take some minutes to tell a lie live on air.</p>

<p>Tens of thousands of red-shirt protesters shut down Rajprasong intersection, a central part of Bangkok, yesterday as tensions rose to a new high.</p>

<p>After a year of investigations, Thai public prosecutors on 31 March&nbsp;2010 filed a criminal lawsuit against Chiranuch Premchaiporn,&nbsp;director and webmaster of Thailand's independent online news&nbsp;website Prachatai.com, for allegedly failing to remove from the&nbsp;site's discussion board readers' comments deemed offensive to the monarchy.</p>

<p>With the red-shirt rally into its third week now, a lot of Thai mainstream media outlets had ample opportunity to display their patronising attitude towards the lesser educated and poorer Thais who constitute the majority of the protesters. These media outlets have been sneering at the red shirts for their perceived naivete, political immaturity and violence-prone nature. In fact, the contempt displayed has been so blatant and numerous that a tome could be compiled from it.</p>

<p>Amnesty International on Tuesday challenged the Chinese authorities to reveal how many people they execute and sentence to death, as the organization published its world overview of the death penalty for 2009.&nbsp;</p>