A protesting group of 200 disabled lottery vendors - including a number of blind sellers - gathering yesterday near the Government House were dispersed by police under the state of emergency, although their demonstration was peaceful.
Some vendors and protest leaders jumped into a canal near the protest site not far from Chamai Maruchet Bridge, as they had earlier threatened, when police charged in to arrest their leaders.
All were later rescued. Police arrested 23 protest leaders, all of whom have already been released.
The protest leaders said they staged the protest after they were promised a meeting on Monday with Finance Ministry officials to discuss their demands, but no senior officials showed up.
They gathered outside the Government House again yesterday to meet Deputy Finance Minister Pradit Pattharaprasit, but he did appear after they had waited for hours until the Cabinet meeting was over.
Pradit later made a phone call asking the vendors to meet him at the ministry but they would not comply. Democrat MP Sirichok Sopha also failed to see them as they had demanded.
The vendors had earlier said they were considering joining any future protest to be organised by anti-government red shirts if their demands for more lottery tickets were not met.
They said the ticket quotas were not fairly distributed to small-time vendors, and accused the government of keeping a large number of lottery tickets for influential agents with connections to government figures.