Thai PM meets red-shirt leaders
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Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva held an unscheduled meeting with two red-shirt leaders at a hotel in Bangkok on Thursday, discussing the government's bail assistance for protesters under remand.
Abhisit's security aide Panithan Wattanayagorn said that the talks went well and both the government and the anti-government red-shirt movement shared the same objective to return to normal society.
Bangkok Post online quoted Thida Thavornseth, one of the two leaders, as saying that Abhisit had promised to help the red-shirt group bail out their leaders and supporters being held on terrorism and other charges since the major protest rally in the capital Bangkok was brought to a bloody end on May 19.
According to The Nation newspaper, Thida, who is the wife of detained red-shirt leader Weng Tojirakarn, said she told the prime minister during the half-hour meeting about her support for the Justice Ministry to intervene and to assist remanded red- shirts to apply for temporary release.
Abhisit promised that the Rights and Liberties Protection Department would provide assistance in the bail procedure for the detained red-shirts, she said.
"I agree with the bail assistance because I see no other options to secure the release," she said, adding that the red- shirts would continue to fight for their cause, though through peaceful means.
The anti-government protest by red-shirts from March 14 to May 19 led to conflicts between the protestors and security forces, leaving at least 91 dead and 2,000 injured.
As the rally came to an end on May 19 following a military dispersion, some core red-shirt leaders, including Weng and Natthawut Saikua, turned themselves in to the police and had been detained ever since.
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