Thai police see red in Chiang Mai

CHIANG MAI: Police responding to reports of a gathering of hundreds of armed red-shirt demonstrators on June 12 were relieved when the group turned out to be South Korean soccer fans cheering on their team.

Residents told police that a group of around 300 people, many wearing red, had gathered in Manna Rim Mae Ping restaurant on the banks of the Ping River. The group were reportedly chanting loudly and many were brandishing red batons.

Police rushed to the scene to put a stop to the illegal gathering. Fortunately, before charging in with batons and tear gas, some officers noticed that the group appeared to be made up of foreigners and their red shirts carried the logo of the South Korean soccer team – rather than slogans calling for the dissolution of parliament or the overthrow of the aristocracy.

The ‘red batons’ were inflatable and used for waving in the air rather than beating police.

The Koreans had hired the whole restaurant to watch their team play Greece in the Fifa World Cup.

This gathering ended considerably better for the red-shirted Koreans than their Thai counterparts last month. After their team won 2-0, the police decided to let the party continue rather than arrest the group for breaches of the Emergency Decree which is still in place in the Northern capital.