Thailand lifts state of emergency

Thailand’s government has decided to lift a state of emergency imposed two months ago in the capital, Bangkok, and its outskirts.

Government security official Tharit Phengdit said on Tuesday that the cabinet had retracted the emergency decree following a sharp decrease in the number of demonstrators.

The January 21 decree, which gave expanded powers to security forces including issuing searches and arrests with limited oversight, will be replaced on Wednesday with a less severe security law.

Under the terms of the Internal Security Act, Thai authorities would still be allowed to prohibit protests in restricted areas and use riot control techniques to maintain security.

The developments come after thousands of Thai anti-government demonstrators recently retreated from major protest sites downtown Bangkok to the calm of a city-center park. The government officials hoped that relocating the demonstrations to Lumpini Park in the center of Bangkok would ease pressure on businesses and government institutions.

The unrest has forced many government offices to stop working.

Thailand has been the scene of mass street protests since November 2013 with the demonstrators calling on Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra to step down so that an unelected “people’s council” could enact reforms.

Opponents see the premier as a proxy for her elder brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, a former prime minister toppled in a coup in 2006.

The ex-premier has been in self-exile since 2008 to avoid a two-year prison sentence.

So far nearly two dozen people have been killed and hundreds more injured during violent protests in the country