Thailand's pro-Thaksin group, the red-shirts, announced on Wednesday their plan of a major rally in Bangkok on July 31 to unveil the number of signatures they collected in the past month for the petition of a royal pardon for convicted ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra, Thai media reported.

Bangkok Post online quoted Nathawut Saikua, key leader of the red-shirted group United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD), as saying that the rally will be held from 3:00 p.m. to midnight at a major public square Sanam Luang, where an unofficial number of people supporting the petition will be announced.

After the rally, UDD will set up a committee to examine and verify the signatures before the petition is forwarded to the King.

The campaign of collecting signature was launched by the anti-government group on July 2, aiming to get 1 million signatures in one month by Aug. 1, to seek a Royal clemency on the self-exiled former prime minister.

Thaksin was ousted by a bloodless military coup in September 2006 before he went into exile. He still has supporters in Thailand, though last October he was sentenced, in absentia, to two years' imprisonment over a corrupt land deal.

Under the campaign procedures laid out by the red-shirts, each form can contain up to six signatures and requires each voter to clearly spell out the name and the surname, the identification card number and a telephone number.

Meanwhile, another key UDD leader Veera Musikapong revealed that the red-shirts' famous political talk show Truth Today, which has been off air since the UDD's D-Station was blocked by the government following last April's political chaos, will be on air again via the new TV channel called People Channel from July 15.

(Xinhua News Agency July 16, 2009)