{"id":10402,"date":"2014-05-15T13:20:52","date_gmt":"2014-05-15T05:20:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=10402"},"modified":"2014-05-15T13:21:10","modified_gmt":"2014-05-15T05:21:10","slug":"2-killed-22-wounded-in-attacks-on-thai-protesters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/05\/15\/2-killed-22-wounded-in-attacks-on-thai-protesters\/","title":{"rendered":"2 killed, 22 wounded in attacks on Thai protesters"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Thai<\/a>
Blanscape \/ Shutterstock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

BANGKOK — Explosions and an overnight shooting attack on anti-government demonstrators in Thailand’s capital killed at least two people early Thursday, authorities said, the latest political violence to hit Bangkok over the last six months.<\/p>\n

The city’s Erawan Medical Center, which tracks casualties, said 22 people were also wounded in the assault before dawn near the city’s Democracy Monument, where protesters are camping out.<\/p>\n

The casualties bring the toll in political violence since protests began to oust the government in November to 27 dead and 800 wounded.<\/p>\n

The crisis deepened last week when the Constitutional Court removed Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra for nepotism in a case that many viewed as politically motivated. Nine Cabinet ministers were also dismissed. Protesters say her removal is not enough; she was simply replaced by a caretaker premier from the ruling party, Niwattumrong Boonsongpaisan.<\/p>\n

The protesters are pushing the Senate and the nation’s courts to intervene in the crisis to install a “neutral” prime minister, but the government says that is a threat to the nation’s democratic system and would be tantamount to a judicial coup.<\/p>\n

The protesters want to set up an unelected “people’s council” to implement still-undefined reforms to completely remove her family’s influence from politics before any elections, which the current ruling party would likely win because of widespread support among the rural poor.<\/p>\n

Thailand’s political crisis began in 2006, when Yingluck’s brother, former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, was toppled by a military coup after being accused of corruption, abuse of power and disrespect for King Bhumibol Adulyadej.<\/p>\n

Thaksin, a former telecommunications billionaire, remains highly popular among the poor in Thailand’s north and northeast, and parties controlled by him have won every national election since 2001. The anti-government protesters, aligned with the opposition Democrat Party and backed by the country’s traditional elites, say they want to remove all traces of his political machine from politics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BANGKOK — Explosions and an overnight shooting attack on anti-government demonstrators in Thailand’s capital killed at least two people early …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":10403,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,17],"tags":[3427,456,1457,482],"class_list":["post-10402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news-w","tag-attacks","tag-protest","tag-thai","tag-thailand","mauthors-thanyarat-doksone","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}