By Thai Newsroom Reporters
A DOZEN POLITICAL activists today (Oct.31) pressed the government to return de facto Pheu Thai boss/”sickly” inmate Thaksin Shinawatra from hospital to jail.
The street protesters led by the so-called Students’ & People’s Network For Thailand Reform peacefully gathered outside Government House calling on the Pheu Thai-led government to take Thaksin back to Bangkok Remand Prison from Police Hospital where he has been admitted due to “illnesses” the symptoms and details of which have remained a mystery to the public for more than two months now.
The anti-Thaksin activists said Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin would virtually run the country as a puppet allegedly pulled around by Thaksin if he agreed to let him stay longer at the hospital amidst hearsay that the de facto Pheu Thai boss had manipulated to keep himself from being put behind bars.
The street protesters have planned to repeat their anti-Thaksin activism until the government returns him to jail since they doubted that he had been so critically ill in the first place.
They accused Thaksin of practically compromising the country’s judicial procedures with his literally living at large by feigning “illnesses” to deserve hospitalisation which could possibly be extended longer than a four-month time as maximumly provided by law for very ill inmates.
The de facto Pheu Thai boss who had earlier resided in self-exile abroad and been convicted in absentia for having perpetrated misconduct during his previous premiership is more or less speculated to be released on parole by next February after he has been already given royal pardon to the extent that his eight-year jail sentence be curtailed to only one year.
Nevertheless, the protesters vowed to not only gather outside Government House on Tuesdays but in the premises of Police Hospital until their demand has been met.
Thaksin was earlier given official permission from Corrections Department chief Sahakarn Petnarin for his prolonged stay at the hospital beyond a 60-day limit which would have otherwise ended last week.
On Aug.22, Thaksin returned to Bangkok from 17 years in self-exile abroad and was transferred in the middle of the night from a nursing unit in the premises of Bangkok Remand Prison where he had barely stayed for half a day to a private ward at Police Hospital.
On the same day the Pheu Thai-endorsed Srettha was given an overwhelming vote for prime minister by lawmakers at parliament.
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Above and Front Page: Scenes from the protest outside Government House today, Oct. 31, 2023. Photos: Thai Rath
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