Heavy deployment of security forces at Dusit Thani Hotel to prevent protesters’ rally on Silom Road

BANGKOK, April 19 (TNA) – Troops and police are deployed at Dusit Thani Hotel, at Saladaeng where Silom Road intersects Rama IV Road where a checkpoint has been set up to inspect vehicles entering and exiting the street after the anti-government ‘Red Shirt’ United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) said it will rally again on Tuesday

Two hundred police from Thungmahamek Police Station are deployed at the Dusit Thani Hotel while five companies of armed troops are deployed at the Bangkok Bank Headquarters on Silom Road, with barbed wire and barricades set up in front of the building.

The UDD leaders say they will mobilise their supporters from all over the country to join the protest at Ratchaprasong intersection and will lead them to an as yet undisclosed location. However, the Silom Road is seen as the possible main target.

The protesters claim Bangkok Bank has close links to the government, which is why they protested at the headquarters in February.

The Centre for the Resolution of the Emergency Situation (CRES) earlier announced Silom Road, a prime Bangkok’s business district or Thailand’s Wall Street, off-limit to the protesters.

The CRES spokesman said the Red Shirt protest and occupation at Ratchaprosong intersection has already enough trouble to the public and that the goverment would do its utmost to prevent the protesters from also using Silom Road as a protest site.

The Red Shirt leaders earlier said that Ratchaprasong area was not far from Silom Road and if the number of their supporters built up, it was inevitable that the demonstration would spill over into Silom Road. (TNA)