It is called Civil Disobedience and Gandhi and Martin Luther King did it too. It is pretty much SOP (standard operating procedure) for protests anywhere in the world.

in France, as soon as there are 3000 in the street, there are black-clad masked scum from the suburbs destroying everything they can on their passage, including police cars and personnel...

Ninja Pikeys?

"Silly because all the new protests have been peaceful."

That's true. I walked through the the red crowd early today, and then again several hours later. I was surprised when the Thai Visa headline read: "CHAOS IN BANGKOK", and I wondered what it was referring to. Bad news sells, regardless of the culture. A couple weeks ago, the reddies did the same thing - shutting down Rama 1 - but that time, there wasn't the alarmist headline.