BANGKOK, Oct 31: Anti-government protesters returned to the streets of Thailand’s capital on Thursday as parliament debated a political amnesty which opponents fear will “whitewash” past abuses and allow ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra to return.

Critics of the controversial legislation say it could unleash a fresh bout of political turmoil in a country rocked by a series of rival demonstrations since royalist generals toppled Thaksin in 2006.

Thousands of people joined a rally against the planned amnesty outside a railway station in Bangkok on Thursday evening, some wearing bandanas reading “Fight” and waving clappers with the slogan “Stop the amnesty for corrupt people”.

“If a murderer kills someone and later he gets an amnesty, then the country will not be peaceful,” said Surapol Srimawong, 56, from the northeastern province of Korat.

“It would mean any leader can kill whoever and after killing he can issue the amnesty bill, then it would be terrible.” According to national police spokesman Piya Uthayo, around 6,500 people joined the rally organised by the opposition Democrat Party.

The ruling Puea Thai Party of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra — Thaksin's sister — has ordered all its lawmakers to support the amnesty bill, which would cover crimes related to political unrest since 2004. A vote is expected in the coming days.

Supporters of the legislation say it will draw a line under years of turmoil culminating in mass pro-Thaksin “Red Shirt” protests in 2010 that left dozens of civilians dead in a military crackdown.

New York-based Human Rights Watch has said a blanket amnesty would “allow officials and protest leaders who have blood on their hands to go unpunished”.

“By whitewashing past abuses, the government denies justice to victims and tells future abusers they have little to fear,” said HRW Asia director Brad Adams.

In 2010 mass rallies by the Red Shirts against the previous government ended in the kingdom's worst civil violence in decades, with more than 90 people killed and nearly 1,900 wounded in street clashes and a military crackdown.

A series of earlier protests by their arch-rivals, the royalist “Yellow Shirts”, helped to trigger the coup that toppled Thaksin.

The former telecoms tycoon is loved by many rural and poor Thais for his populist policies while in power, but his opponents accuse him of being corrupt, dictatorial and a threat to the monarchy.

Thaksin, the former owner of Manchester City football club, lives in self-imposed exile in Dubai to avoid prison for a corruption conviction imposed in his absence in 2008.

He contends that the jail term — linked to a controversial purchase of state-owned land by his wife — was politically motivated.—AFP