This blog was originally posted on Open Democracy.

The weeks of popular protests by thousands of red-shirted demonstrators in the center of Bangkok reached a critical stage on the late Saturday evening of April 10, 2010. At that point, Thailand’s state-security forces began a crackdown against those who had gathered under the banner of the United Front of Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD). A longstanding political crisis that has divided Thais into bitterly opposed camps has now become a national tragedy.

Protesters and military police clash in the streets of Bangkok on April 12, 2010.

The immediate crisis had been escalating since mid-March 2010, when tens of thousands of members of the increasingly heterogeneous UDD began their takeover of the streets of Bangkok. The red-bedecked activists from all over Thailand carried their tents, sleeping-mats and food supplies into the area around the high-rent shopping-district of the Rajprasong intersection. The red-shirts‘ political representatives held intermittent talks with the government of Thailand’s prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva; but these broke down in the first days of April, and the protestors then vowed to stay in place until the parliament was dissolved and new elections announced.

The crackdown was launched three days after Abhisit declared a state of emergency, which provided the government with broad powers of arrest, censorship, and suspension of civil liberties. Among the first measures taken was the blocking or closure of independent media, including thirty-six websites; the popular bilingual news-site Prachatai was one of those affected. SEE THE REST OF THIS POST