Thai students to protest banning of popular opposition party

Future Forward Party supporters gathering outside the political party’s headquarters, after the Constitutional Court ruled to dissolve the party, in Bangkok. Future Forward Party, a stridently anti-military Thai party, was dissolved on Feb 21 and its key members banned from politics for a decade over a US$6mil loan by its billionaire founder. - AFP

BANGKOK: Thai students are expected to stage a protest this weekend against a court's decision that dissolved the country's second largest opposition party, less than a year after an election to end direct military rule.

The Constitutional Court on Friday disbanded the upstart Future Forward Party, which won more than 6 million votes last year and came in third, for accepting loans from its founder.