09/05/2014 19:09
Anti-government protests in Bangkok
Thousands of protesters have surrounded Bangkok's Government House seeking the removal of Thailand's embattled caretaker government, amid soaring political tensions in the wake of former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra's ouster, CNN reported.
The People's Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC), which has been protesting against the government since November, is pushing to replace the country's caretaker administration with an unelected interim government.
Protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban took to the stage and told those gathered: "We will sleep here tonight, we will eat here. After lunch ... we will go to visit the Parliament House, because there is a meeting to select a new Speaker of the House today.
"If the Speaker is a slave of Thaksin, there will be one treatment; if not, there will be another treatment for them."
The PDRC has been seeking to rid Thai politics of the alleged influence of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, Yingluck's telecommunications tycoon brother who was overthrown in a 2006 military coup and has since lived in self-imposed exile to avoid a corruption conviction.