Thai Red Shirts rally to mark 2006 coup, May crackdown

He said the rallies would call for authorities to free all political prisoners, reform the courts with the introduction of a jury system, as well as other land and economic measures.

On Friday, demonstrators, wearing their signature color and singing the “Red in the Land” anthem, converged in front of the Bangkok remand prison, where key leaders are being held on terrorism charges related to the unrest.

Nineteen senior Reds are currently jailed there for having key roles in the two-month rally. None has been convicted of any crime in relation to that protest, while some other top Reds remain on the run.

Bangkok, which is still under a state of emergency along with six other provinces, has one army-run command centre and another has been set up in Chiang Mai, although the decree has been lifted there.

About 900 police were put in charge of the Chiang Mai rally and about 350 troops were on standby, authorities said.

In Bangkok, the Metropolitan Police said there would be about 100 checkpoints in the city on Sunday and about 3,000 plainclothes and uniformed officers mobilized.

Deputy prime minister Suthep Thuagsuban said rally leaders had been briefed on what they are permitted to do during the demonstrations.

“If protesters cooperate, there is likely to be no problem,” he said.

Thailand's color-coded politics have revealed deep divides in the country, with the mostly poor, working class Reds at one end of the spectrum and royalist Yellow Shirts, backed by the Bangkok-based elite, at the other.

The Yellows detest Thaksin and their 2006 rallies helped trigger the coup that toppled him.

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