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BANGKOK (Reuters) – Thousands of yellow-shirted Thai royalists staged their biggest show of support for the monarchy yet on Sunday amid months of protests calling for royal reforms and the removal of the government.
“It is time for us to go out and protect our beloved monarchy,” said Bin Bunleurit, a former movie star turned rescue volunteer who had encouraged people to demonstrate at the Grand Palace in Bangkok.
“Everyone has the right to defend any change they want, but what is the reason they want to reform the monarchy?”
The Palace has not commented since the protests began in mid-July.
The protesters say King Maha Vajiralongkorn’s powers are too great and they want to reverse the changes that gave him personal control of some army units and a palace fortune valued at tens of billions of dollars.
They criticize the king’s long stays in Germany as wasteful and accuse the monarchy of allowing decades of army dominance by accepting coups like the one that Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha seized power in 2014.
The student- and youth-led protests initially sought Prayuth’s removal, but they have become the biggest challenge to the monarchy since the end of absolute royal rule in 1932.
The largest protests have drawn tens of thousands of people, many times more than the royalists have, including accompanying members of the security forces who are also ordered to wear yellow, the color of the king.
Suwit Thongprasert, an expelled Buddhist monk and royalist leader, welcomed the size of the crowd on Sunday.
“It is a signal for those who want to abolish the monarchy to think of the people,” he told reporters.
The Prayuth government banned the protests last month and arrested many of the best-known leaders, but the emergency measures were canceled after they failed to draw many more people to the streets of Bangkok.
Three high-profile protest leaders were hospitalized over the weekend after police said they would be re-arrested after the expiration of their detention limit. One of them passed out in police custody in scenes that angered protesters.
Prayuth has said he will not resign and rejects allegations that last year’s election was designed for his benefit.
(Written by Matthew Tostevin; Edited by Toby Chopra)
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