With anti-government demonstrations flaring up around the country, a bid by the dean of the Mahasarakham University to prevent one there failed yesterday as college students defied his ban and went forward with their protest.
University campuses are exempt from the Emergency Decree’s ban on gatherings, and the college initially stated solely that any rallies held on campus grounds should abide by the regulation and chorus from anti-monarchy rhetoric. The dean later warned that the rally risked spreading Covid-19 and advised the scholars to cancel the protest.
Mere insisted they might proceed, and joked that the theme of the rally had been modified to “anti-dean and anti-government”.
Political protests have damaged out across the country following the July 18 rally at Bangkok’s Democracy Monument by the Union of Students of Thailand and a group referred to as Free Youth. The group wants Parliament to be dissolved, the Constitution to be rewritten to be extra democratic, and the federal government to cease official and unofficial harassment of opponents.
A prominent ‘red shirt’ leader today also weighed into the ground swell of youth protests around the country urging them to not deliver the Thai monarchy into the issues they have been addressing, claiming it will “not finish well” if they did..