Hiro Muramoto Killed In Bangkok

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Bryan Lee

Expat Street Photographer
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This story is just breaking, few details are available. Below are two stubs with links to the full articles. This is a sad day for the photography and camera community here in Asia.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/10/AR2010041001819.html

Reuters journalist killed in Bangkok protests

Reuters
Saturday, April 10, 2010; 12:37 PM

BANGKOK (Reuters) - A Reuters cameraman was killed in a violent clash between Thai troops and anti-government protesters in Bangkok on Saturday.

Hiro Muramoto, a Japanese national who worked for Thomson Reuters in Tokyo, was shot in the chest and arrived at Klang Hospital without a pulse, said the hospital's director, Dr. Pichaya Nakwatchara.

"I am dreadfully saddened to have lost our colleague Hiro Muramoto in the Bangkok clashes," said David Schlesinger, Reuters Editor-in-Chief.


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http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0410/thailand.html


Reuters cameraman killed in Thai clashes
Saturday, 10 April 2010 17:44

A Reuters cameraman has been killed in a violent clash between Thai troops and anti-government protesters in Bangkok.

Hiro Muramoto, a Japanese national who worked for Thomson Reuters in Tokyo, was reported to have been shot in the chest.

'I am dreadfully saddened to have lost our colleague Hiro Muramoto in the Bangkok clashes,' said David Schlesinger, Reuters Editor-in-Chief.
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'Journalism can be a terribly dangerous profession as those who try to tell the world the story thrust themselves in the centre of the action. The entire Reuters family will mourn this tragedy.'

Mr Muramoto had been covering fighting between troops and protesters in the Rajdumnoen Road area where soldiers opened fire with rubber bullets and tear gas, as well as live rounds into the air, in Bangkok's worst political violence in 18 years.
 
Can anyone explain (in a few sentences) what seems to an outsider like myself, the apparent insanity of Thai politics?

From my perspective it seems that whatever party is out of power has all its supporters don colored shirts and raise holy hell until there's a constitutional crisis, the military takes over for a period of relative (imposed) peace. This is followed by new elections, and the problems start all over again. In the meantime Thailand seems to be a pretty nice country in most respects, so it's hard to see what all the craziness is about.
 
great question Dave. i would be curious to know more as well. especially now that someone has sadly lost their life recording the events.
 
According to the BBC there are over five hundred injured and fifteen dead, with both troops and demonstrators using firearms. That makes it a worse situation than last year :(
 
David Murphy said:
Can anyone explain (in a few sentences) what seems to an outsider like myself, the apparent insanity of Thai politics?

From my perspective it seems that whatever party is out of power has all its supporters don colored shirts and raise holy hell until there's a constitutional crisis, the military takes over for a period of relative (imposed) peace. This is followed by new elections, and the problems start all over again. In the meantime Thailand seems to be a pretty nice country in most respects, so it's hard to see what all the craziness is about.
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David, what you call "craziness" has a simple background:

"After the war, Thailand emerged as an ally of the United States. As with many of the developing nations during the Cold War, Thailand then went through decades of political instability characterised by coups d'état as one military regime replaced another, but eventually progressed towards a stable prosperity and democracy in the 1980s."

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thailand)

Exemplum docet -- look at South America, or Georgia (the FSU Georgia of course) to compare some similar developments.
 
Dear TWok,

you misinterpreted my post to an alarming extent.

As stated explicitly, the part in quotation marks is (as mentioned) an excerpt from wikipedia.

It is taken from the "20th century" paragraph of the forecited article.

But the bold accentuation is mine, and it is addressed to David who (accustomed to academic quoting form) hopefully won't misinterpret.
 
If the Iranians can blame their dog overpopulation on the corrupt west, true statement, then the people in power anywhere can blame anything on any one they want.

Politics is getting more interesting by the day. I am just trying to CYA.
 
I wish I could help David out, but being born and bred here, I'm sometimes at a loss about what some of my fellow citizens are thinking. Getting that explained in a few sentences is out of the question.

As of my writing, the death toll has reached 18, which include civilians and uniformed personnel alike. In my opinion, we have already plunged into a no win situation. The demonstrators did nothing to help by moving their protest from the original area to the business district which disrupt lives of ordinary citizens. The Gov't had to do something otherwise they wouldn't be do their duty for the rest of the population.

It is now apparent there are some who want to see more violence in the country as people have reported and captured on video, footage that show what appeared to be a person being shot from behind the crowd (as opposed to from the front) and shadowy figures moving about near the crowd with military rifles, wearing military-looking clothing, black hood and latex gloves.

What I'm particularly sad about is that the leaders of the demonstrators --based on what I hear on many of the Youtube video clips-- seem to try to incite even more hatred and violence by blaming all bloodshed on the Prime Minister and the Gov't without examining any facts. I pray for all the deads and injured, and above all that cool heads and common sense to prevail...soon
 
I think I heard on CNN that the Red Shirts were paid protesters by the former PM. I guess he wants to get back in to steal some more dough.
 
Since Stephen simply deleted the post on the Iraqi killings because 'not about photography' (read: politics), I expect this thread to be gone within the day.
 
I'm a foreigner who's been living in Thailand for many years. My first experiences with the violence of Thai politics dates back to the mid-1970s. I lament that little seems to have changed since then, at least as far as the politically related violence and endemic corruption goes. Akarin's account of recent events coincides with what I've been hearing. The so-called "red shirts" are indeed financed by Thaksin, the former prime minister recently found guilty of massive corruption and sentenced to two years in prison. Recent findings by one of the highest courts in the land have found him guilty of causing more than 4 billion US dollars in damages to the Thai tele-comm. sector alone. And that damage was done in just the four or five short years he was in power. He has fled the country and now lives in Dubai, a "lonely man", by his own laughable accounts. But he would like to come back, this time as dictator for life, and with no further checks or constraints on his corrupt practices. A lot of corrupt people stand to earn a lot of money should he successfully return to power. Hence their motivation to riot on his behalf. Someone has said the Thai King can end of all of this violence with just a few words. The king is old, ill, and he must stay out of politics because the red shirts, especially Thaksin, have marked him as their enemy, and they would like to destroy his reign, although they won't tell the farmers in the red shirt mob that truth. With such a deeply corrupted political culture, with an equally corrupt and incompetent military, and with an educational system that has left most of the rural population behind such that they can no longer even understand how they are being betrayed by the very people they elect, it is not surprising that such people can be paid by criminals costumed as politicians to chant slogans, and that events quickly spiral out of control and into bloody violence. It was reported last evening that another freelance photo-journalist also took pictures of mysterious people firing from the red shirt side of the confrontation into the soldiers trying to disperse them. These photos have been turned over to a BKK TV station. I don't know the name of that journalist, but apparently, from what I've been hearing, he wanted to document just how false the "red shirt" mob's claims to be non-violent really are. That photo-journalist said the Japanese photo-journalist who was killed was taking similar pictures. I do not know that he was killed because he was seen taking such photos. In the melee, it could have been an accident, a random shot. I personally don't expect much anymore from Thai politics. But, this morning, stocks and tourist sector related investments are way down, as is the rest of the economy. As is the general mood amongst all persons who would like Thailand to have a better future. But, that future, for better or for worse, is totally up to the Thai people to determine for themselves. I can only wish them 'good luck'.
 
From my experiences, I suspect that there is a better chance it was not a random shot than pure bad luck. Who knows...
 
Turtle said:
From my experiences, I suspect that there is a better chance it was not a random shot than pure bad luck. Who knows...
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In my experience (with several years in the military and as a police officer) random shots account for at least as many deaths and injuries as intentionally aimed shots. But, aimed or random, Muramoto-san is dead, and it is a sad loss.
 
Frontman said:
In my experience (with several years in the military and as a police officer) random shots account for at least as many deaths and injuries as intentionally aimed shots. But, aimed or random, Muramoto-san is dead, and it is a sad loss.
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That may be true for the average person engaged in a demo, but it seems to me that journalists are getting shot an awful lot more often than the average person engaged in the same activities they are. I am always suspicious when people are killed by well-placed rounds. Sure the odds are there that a person will be hit by a round, but slimmer still that they will be hit by a fatal round right on the button. One need look no further than Israel/Palestine for examples of journalists and activists who seem to have more than their fair share of 'random rounds' right between the eyes or smack in the middle of the chest. In that particular theatre there seem to be a remarkable number of journalists who suffer remarkably bad luck.

There is no doubt that journalists are often targeted deliberately all around the world where they are seen to be supporting/airing an undesirable perspective. This is all I was drawing reference to.

It is very sad that he is dead, but even worse when one considers that he may have been shot deliberately and that without a human decision, he might have walked away. Of course there is a very good chance it was a random - we will never know.
 
Our major paper today show a picture of Hiro Muramoto being carried by protesters after he was shot. It's sad to see senseless deaths.
 
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