Thai protester shot dead, 4 hurt

BANGKOK—A Thai protester was killed and four wounded, an emergency official said on Saturday, after an unidentified gunman opened fire on demonstrators whose efforts to topple PrimeMinister Yingluck Shinawatra flared into violence over the past two days.

The shooting came 48 hours after clashes between police and about 500 protesters, who are determined to disrupt a snap Feb. 2 election called by Yingluck, outside a voting registration center in which two people were killed and scores wounded.

Petphong Kamjonkitkarn, director of the Erawan Emergency Centre in the Thai capital Bangkok, told Reuters one man in his 30s had been killed and four others suffered gunshot wounds.

The protesters have been rallying for weeks in their attempt to topple Yingluck, who they see as a puppet of her brother and former premier, billionaire tycoon Thaksin Shinawatra, and have vowed to disrupt the election.

Yingluck, who draws her support from the populous voter base among the rural poor in the north and northeast, is determined to go ahead with the poll. On Friday, her government asked the military for help to provide security for both candidates and voters.

However, the chief of the heavily politicized military refused to rule out military intervention, responding that “the door was neither open nor closed” when asked if a coup was possible.

Several hundred protesters are camped out in tents around the walls of Government House in Bangkok. Witnesses said they were sleeping when gunfire suddenly rang out at about 3:30 a.m. on Saturday.

“I was sleeping and then I heard several gunshots. I was surprised,” said one 18-year-old protester, who would not identify himself other than by his nickname “Boy.”

Other witness said the shots could have come from a car as it drove past the protest site. Reuters television pictures showed bullet holes in a concrete wall and a generator, as well as bloodstains inside in one of the many flimsy tents set up by protesters around Government House.