Red Shirts set to submit petition seeking Thaksin pardon August 17

BANGKOK, Aug 3 (TNA) – The Red Shirt movement plans to submit its petitions on August 17 seeking a royal pardon for ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

Veera Musikapong, Natthawut Saikua and Jatuporn Promphan, leaders of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) told a news conference that verification of the petitions signed by more than five million people will be finished about August 15 or 16 and the UDD would
submit the petitions on August 17.

Some 100,000 petition papers will be put on trays while the rest will be boxed and carried by a thousand UDD members to the Bureau of the Royal Household.

The government, Prime Minister and the Interior Minister oppose the UDD’s move to seek the royal pardon, said Mr Veera adding that the Red Shirts group was ready to clarify all related issues and would not allow (the government ) to use its power to hinder their plan to submit the petition.

They will neither stage any protest nor deliver a speech to the crowd. The group will only travel to submit the petition and go home, Mr Nutthawut said.

The UDD collected signatures of Mr Thaksin’s supporters seeking a royal pardon for the former prime minister in response to his being sentenced for two years imprisonment last October, despite not being present for the trial or verdict, for abuse of power in helping his then-wife securing a parcel of prime Bangkok commercial land at a price discounted much below the going market price. (TNA)