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INTERVIEW - Dissident highlights lingering Thai tensions
By Ambika Ahuja
BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand's anti-government "red shirts", forced underground by a state of emergency in a quarter of the country, have a bold new advocate willing to risk jail to keep the political movement alive.
Sombat Boonngamanong, a prominent social activist recently freed from detention, said his group, Red Sunday, would organise activities each Sunday in defiance of the emergency decree banning gatherings of more than five people.
The activities are nothing like the mass protests that rocked central
But the 42-year-old former student activist and theatre enthusiast is already making a mark, drawing 100 supporters in an inaugural July 11 event at a busy
Testing the government's patience two days after his release, Sombat tied a red ribbon on a signpost at Ratchaprasong intersection. Several followers painted their arms red and lay on the ground next to posters reading: "People died here".
The protest would hardly seem newsworthy if not for an emergency rule that critics say is stifling dissent by allowing Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva's government to arrest and hold people without charge, censor the media and restrict public gatherings.
"There is less and less space for reasonable dissent," Sombat said in an interview.
As if to reinforce his point, a 17-year-old student this week dropped out of a popular reality TV show after posting comments on Facebook criticising the prime minister, using abusive language that incensed government supporters and raised questions over free speech at a time of deep divisions in Thai society.
"Anyone criticising the government has been silenced by state-sanctioned censorship or discredited by internet vigilante groups. It's that kind of cultural censorship and social sanctions that worries me," said Sombat.
He is being watched closely in a country where authorities have arrested hundreds of opposition members, shut media, frozen bank accounts of suspected protest supporters and brought terrorism charges against senior "red shirts", including the movement's self-exiled figurehead, Thaksin Shinawatra.
'TRUE DEMOCRACY'
Sleeping mostly at safe houses, he says he is fearful of going home and avoids speaking over the telephone.
Using the pseudonym "polka dot editor" since Thaksin was ousted in a 2006 military coup, Sombat ran a website followed widely by like-minded middle-class Thais, many of whom dislike graft-convicted Thaksin but don't approve of how he was removed. The authorities have recently shut the site down.
He was featured in a political magazine this week displaying an extended middle finger. "If you stop me from writing, I will still think. If you want to stop me from thinking, you have to stop my breathing," said the caption, citing one of his poems.
His middle-class pedigree and distaste for Thaksin put him at odds with a political movement backed by thousands of rural and urban poor who have clamoured for Thaksin's return to power.
He eschews idols like Thaksin and says he wants "a true democracy by the people and for the people".
He said his campaign will focus on remembering those who died and avoid the sort of violence that shook
He said his group would organise "cultural activities" every Sunday -- from theatre and dance to comedy skits -- and encourage dissidents to wear red, distinguishing themselves from the royalist, pro-establishment "yellow shirts".
"I want to show
The founder of the Mirror Foundation, a non-profit organisation focused on human trafficking, statelessness, disaster relief and minority rights, does not think of himself as a "red shirt" leader.
But he entered the spotlight after his arrest on June 26 for breaching the emergency decree. He was released two weeks later.
"People are yearning for peace so we will be seeing a lot of this sort of symbolic dissent," said Prinya Thewanaruemitkul, a law professor at
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