'Red' vendor's 'Squareface' wine seized

'Red' vendor's 'Squareface' wine seized

MAE HONG SON — A Chiang Mai red-shirt leader said Monday he will file a police complaint against four soldiers who demolished his roadside stall selling bottles of homemade strawberry wine using a caricature of fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra as its logo.

Pichit Tamoon, leader of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship chapter here, was at his stall on the Mae Malai-Pai road in Pai district, about four kilometres from the popular Memorial Bridge, when up to five soldiers from an unknown unit arrived in a Humvee.

They then pulled down a red tent at his shop and seized eight bottles of the wine, six bottles of orange juice and 20 bottles of strawberry jam, Matichon Online quoted Mr Pichit as saying.

Mr Pichit claimed his stall was located on land leased to business owners to sell souvenirs for tourists, not on the roadside or at a public venue. The soldiers did not tell him the reason they confiscated his goods or record what they had taken. He said each wine bottle features a square-faced Thaksin cartoon as a logo.

"It's only a trademark, so I don't get it which law have I broken or how I could have defied martial law?' Mr Pichit said.   

The red-shirt leader wanted Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, as chief of the National Council for Peace and Order, to launch a probe into the incident and order the officers to return his belongings.

He plans to lodge a complaint at Pai police station saying the soldiers' action could be described as a theft.

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