About 500 supporters of the “red shirt” anti-government movement welcomed 20 red bicyclists from Bangkok, sang songs and listened to a call-in speech from a fugitive leader during a fund-raising rally in Pattaya.
The United Front for Democracy Agains Dictatorship’s “Pattaya Love” chapter organized the Jan. 10 event to welcome the “Two Legs for Democracy Team,” a group of red shirt cyclists who biked from Bangkok to raise funds for the struggling movement.
Teaching them young – children of the red shirt movement play with toy guns during the fund-raising rally in Pattaya.
Local red shirts followed the bikers down North Road, along Beach Road to Walking Street and up to Soi Khopai, where they joined the rally stage at Khum Thappraya.
Speeches started with calls for the government to suspend taxes on liquid petroleum gas and freeze its price. While there’s nothing the Thai government can do about rising international oil prices, the red shirts are using the increase as an excuse to grouse about taxes.
Later the demonstrators joined in song and general anti-Democrat Party speeches before stopping to hear a call-in speech from leader Jakrapob Penkair, who launched the violent “Red Siam” splinter group and fled for self-exile overseas in 2010 after being charged with lese majeste.
