Activists to Seize Thammasat After Rector Bans Protest

Parit “Penguin” Chiwarak on Sept. 11, 2020.

BANGKOK — The leader of a major protest planned for Sept. 19 said Friday he will lead the demonstrators into Thammasat University regardless of the administration’s ban on the protest taking place inside the campus. 

Thammasat University administrators said on Thursday that the protest will not be allowed to take place there – but Parit “Penguin” Chiwarak says is just another obstacle for the planned major pro-democracy rally. 

“The will of the people is greater, and more dignified, than the will of the administration that serves the dictatorship,” Parit said. “We will act according to the fact that Thammasat belongs to the people and its students.” 

“If people during Oct. 6 and Oct. 14 can do it, then so can we. I think by the sheer force of our people we will be able to get it, and take the space back for citizens,” Parit said, referring to the 1973 popular uprising and a massacre that followed three years later. 

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The protest leaders urged their supporters to gather inside the university from 2pm onwards on Sept. 19. 

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