<p>[Media release]&nbsp;RATCHAPRASONG, MAY 10, 2010: After several days of internal discussions leaders of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) today responded to the five-point road map of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva.</p>

<p>Despite the bid for reconciliation by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, the continued censorship and harassment of red-shirt media is a key factor why the protesters and their leaders have not left the Rajprasong area yet.</p>

<p>The summoning of student activists supporting the red-shirt movement&nbsp;was unbecoming for a government claiming to be democratic, said one of&nbsp;three student activists summoned to the 11th Infantry Regiment by the&nbsp;Centre for Emergency Situation Resolution.</p>

<p>A student in Had Yai received a surprise phone call from Abhisit Vejjajiva after he had sent an SMS to the PM condemning his road map proposal. &nbsp;He claimed to have been told that Thaksin was paying coalition politicians 100 million baht per head to switch sides. &nbsp;Abhisit admitted making the call, but denied that he had said this about Thaksin.</p>

<p>On 1 May, Private Thiwanont Thienthes, 23, was reported dead at his house in Phimai District, Nakhon Ratchasima Province. &nbsp;Dressed in full military uniform, he was found to have hung himself from a tamarind tree in the backyard.</p>

<p>On 2 May, Secretary-General of the Students Federation of Thailand Anuthee Dejthewaporn and two other students reported as summoned to the Centre for the Resolution of the Emergency Situation at the 11th Infantry Headquarters.</p>

<p>The government's claim that an anti-monarchist movement aims to overthrow the monarchy may backfire and negatively affect the institution unless the Abhisit Vejjajiva government produces evidence soon to back up the allegation, noted historian and former rector of Thammasat University Charnvit Kasetsiri has warned.</p>

<p>Bangkok/Brussels, 30 April 2010: The Thai political system has broken down and seems incapable of pulling the country back from the brink of widespread conflict. The stand-off in the streets of Bangkok between the government and Red Shirt protesters is worsening and could deteriorate into an undeclared civil war. The country's polarisation demands immediate action in the form of assistance from neutral figures from outside. It is time for Thailand to consider help from international friends to avoid a slide into wider violence. Even the most advanced democracies have accepted this.</p>

<p>(New York, April 30, 2010) &ndash; The Thai government should prosecute perpetrators of political violence on all sides to stop the increasingly deadly conflict in Thailand, Human Rights Watch said today.&nbsp;</p>

<p><em>Somsak Jeamtheerasakul&rsquo;s analysis and observations of the current situation. &nbsp;Translated and shortened by Prachatai English.</em></p> <p>The government&rsquo;s use of force to crack down on the red shirts at Rajprasong now seems practically inevitable, as does the collision course taken by Thaksin and the red-shirt leaders, including the possible use of the black-clad men who are the latter&rsquo;s secret weapons.</p>

<p>In December 2008 the UDD leader Natthawut Saikua made a beautiful speech to the crowd of redshirts in front of parliament. Invoking powerfully elemental imagery, this speech (excerpt translated below) portrays the redshirts in the figurative form of the sons and daughters of the land who know full well that a vast distance separates them from the sky.</p>

<p>Police visited the red-shirt FM97.25 MHz community radio station in Samut Prakan province's Samrong area yesterday afternoon to warn the 300 red shirts protecting the station they were breaking the emergency decree and could face up to two years in prison as well as Bt40,000 in fines.</p>