Thailand: Thousands of people challenge monarchy on Thammasat campus

Pro-democracy protesters in Bangkok on September 20, 2020. AP Photo / Gemunu Amarasinghe

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In Thailand, a new day of mobilization against the government is due to take place this Sunday, September 20.

Between 50,000 and 80,000 people were in the streets on Saturday demanding new elections and reform of the monarchy.

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They woke up at dawn and under a rainy sky on the huge campus of Thammasat University, in the historic center of the capital.

The mobilization weekend

resulted in two concrete achievements: the foundation, announced on the evening of Saturday September 19, of a new political party, the New People's Party, which will bring together a number of political figures and leaders of the new student movement. , and the very symbolic pose this Sunday morning, at the place where a commemorative plaque of the end of the absolute monarchy had mysteriously disappeared some time ago, a new plaque which reminds us that Thailand belongs to its people and not not to its king, reports our correspondent in Bangkok,

Carol Isoux

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This is the subject that most divides the Thai population, a good part of whom believes that the sanctity of the monarchy is constitutive of Thai identity and that it cannot be questioned, especially not in public.

If the government has not yet reacted, on social networks, the anger of the ultra-royalists is growing.

Thammasat, a symbol of student protest

The fact that the protest is taking root on the campus of the University of Thammasat is not by chance.

It is a symbolic place and steeped in history for Thai students. 

Thamassat is the story of a massacre.

An indelible task anchored in student memory.

In October 1976, the pro-democracy movement gathered every day on this campus.

At the time, it was already the story of a youth who did not want soldiers and who fought against coups d'état.

The natural rallying point is this progressive university, the headquarters of left-wing intellectuals where Communist Party executives also hang out.

45 dead, no responsible

On October 6, the police and the royalist militiamen invaded the premises and the violence reached an unthinkable level.

The police fired live ammunition at the unarmed demonstrators.

Those who try to flee are shot, others are lynched, hanged from trees.

Photos taken by the press show men beating down on the bodies of several long-dead students. 

Who is responsible for the carnage in Thamassat?

Officially, we still don't know.

The subject remains taboo, and a question remains: what is the degree of involvement of the monarchy in this bloodbath which claimed the lives of more than 45 people?

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