One protest leader slid down a rope from a hotel balcony to escape riot police, while others were rescued by hundreds of "red shirts," who heavily outnumbered security forces at a Bangkok hotel owned by the family of former premier Thaksin Shinawatra.
The three leaders later joined around 10,000 of their supporters at a shopping center in the middle of the city, now the main site of month-long protests in the Thai capital.
"If they use force to disperse us, we will flatten the entire neighborhood," said Jatuporn Prompan, a protest leader who was not among the three escapees, on a red shirt stage at the intersection of posh shopping malls and luxury hotels.
The government, which had previously said it would not directly confront the protesters, also stepped up the rhetoric,
although there were no troops on the streets of Bangkok.
"We will arrest and suppress the terrorists. We have set up special task forces hunting for the terrorists," Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban said.
The move against leaders of the red shirts on Friday follows a failed attempt by troops to eject protesters from one of their encampments in the city last weekend. At least 24 people were killed and more than 800 injured in Thailand's worst political violence since 1992.
Source : http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63F0CX20100416
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