<p><em>Lack of sympathy for calls for justice, democracy still evident</em></p> <p>One year on, tens of thousands of red shirts converged at Ratchaprasong Intersection yesterday to commemorate the end of the bloody military confrontation with the reds. Many are still grappling with how the government managed to get away with the crackdowns that began on April 10 and ended on May 19, leaving a combined death toll of 92 from both sides - but mostly red shirts - and more than a thousand injuries.</p>

<p>Khon Kaen - At an event marking one year since the dispersal of public demonstrations in which 92 people were killed and over 2,000 injured, speakers from four major non-government groups gathered yesterday to assess the progress of recent reports into the outbreak of violence during April and May 2010.</p>

<p>On Wednesday, May 11, 2011, throngs of supporters of the right to speak, including many so-called &ldquo;Red Shirts&rdquo;, will again lay siege to the Nag Lerng Police Station in downtown Bangkok. Another reminder of the packed room of the Faculty of Law, Thammasat University in late April, when a press conference was held by the Nitirat Group (http://www.enlightened-jurists.com/) and a lecturer who was facing intimidation and imminent legal actions for his exercise of the right to freedom expression.</p>

<p>On 1 May, Somyos Prueksakasemsuk was remanded at the Crime Suppression Division.&nbsp; He was visited by red shirts and former Triumph workers.</p>

<p>30 April 2011: Mr. Somyot Pruksakasemsuk, Founding Editor of &ldquo;Voice of Taksin&rdquo;, a magazine affiliated with the Red Shirts Movement, was arrested by the police at the Immigration checkpoint of the Thailand-Cambodia town today apparently on a charge related to l&egrave;se majest&eacute; or defamation of the monarch. His attorney dubbed this arrest a political ploy to suppress the opposition voices when the general elections are forthcoming. </p>

<p>On 25 April, the Democracy Network made a public call for the abolition of Article 112 of the Criminal Code and an end to restricting the people&rsquo;s freedom of expression.&nbsp; The call was made at the office of Red Power magazine at the red-shirt headquarters, Imperial Lad Phrao, in Bangkok.</p>

<p>Reporters Without Borders condemns the closure of a dozen community radio stations linked to the opposition &ldquo;Red Shirts&rdquo; in a major police operation yesterday in Bangkok and the surrounding provinces. An exact list of the radio stations raided by the police is not yet available.</p>

<p>On 26 April, 13 red-shirt community radio stations in Bangkok and surrounding areas were raided and searched by the authorities.</p>

<p>Red Shirt lawyer held a one-person dialogue in Kuala Lumpur after cancellation of an event to be hosted by Amnesty International Malaysia after advice from the Amnesty International Secretariat.</p>

<p class="rtecenter">&ldquo;Can you see the moon? Can you see it seen...&rdquo;<br /> (Playwright) Gertrude Stein, <em>A Circular Play</em></p> <p>The lack of ethical, balanced and objective reporting by certain Bangkok-based foreign and Thai journalists1 is a continuing dilemma for the pro-democracy movement since post-2006 coup. INGOs are not much better (e.g. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and now the International Crisis Group [ICG]). Indeed ICG Update Briefing Report (No.121, 11 April 2011) entitled &ldquo;<a href="http://www.prachatai.com/english/node/2413"><em>Thailand: The calm before the storm</em></a>&rdquo; makes many errors and false assumptions that it seems to me that researchers are not keeping their ears close to the real ground.</p>

<p>Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij has written a short note on his <a href="https://www.facebook.com/notes/korn-chatikavanij/truth-today/10150155324549730">Facebook page</a> about his conversation with a red-shirt taxi driver.</p>

<p>On 3 April, hundreds of red shirts attended the funeral of Therdsak Fungklinchan who had been killed during a clash with the military at Khok Wua intersection on 10 April last year.</p>