Bangkok - About 40 000 red-shirted, anti-government protesters gathered on Sunday in Bangkok's old quarter to mark the first anniversary of clashes with the military in which 26 people were killed and over 800 wounded.
“We are mourning the loss of innocent lives a year ago. We are remembering the violence against Thai people last year. We are asking for justice,” said protest leader Nattawut Saikua.
No one has been declared responsible for the unrest on April 10, when soldiers fought thousands of protesters in the narrow streets around Democracy Monument in Thailand's worst political violence in 18 years.
The red-shirted supporters of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, a populist billionaire ousted in a 2006 coup and convicted of graft, said they would continue to hold protests until the government took responsibility for the violence.
“They won't give up until Thailand has justice,” Thaksin said of the families of the dead and wounded, in an address by video link from abroad, where he is living to avoid jail.
Five soldiers and 21 civilians were killed, including Reuters television cameraman Hiro Muramoto, a 43-year-old Japanese national, on April 10 last year.
Witnesses reported seeing flashes of gunfire from troops but the government blamed civilian deaths on shadowy, unidentified black-clad gunmen who were filmed in the area.
“Today we pay tribute to Hiro's life but remain discouraged that the circumstances of his death are still unknown a year later. Hiro's family and Reuters colleagues deserve to know how this tragedy occurred and who was behind it,” said Stephen Adler, Reuters editor-in-chief.
Police concluded on March 24 they had no evidence to indicate troops killed Muramoto, a reversal of preliminary findings by Thailand's Department of Special Investigation (DSI) that a soldier may have fired the fatal bullet. - Reuters