Jeff Savage is being detained under Thailand's emergency decree on allegations he incited, or participated in, violence and arson in the chaotic final hours of the anti-government protest, as troops moved in on demonstrators. Fifteen people were killed on the final day of the two-month protest in the middle of Bangkok.

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Video footage circulating on YouTube shows Savage in the days before the protest was ended apparently urging protestors to set fire to Central World shopping centre, the biggest mall in Thailand.

"We're gonna smash the <expletive> Central [World] Plaza ... we're gonna loot everything, gold, watches, everything, and then we're gonna burn it to the ground," Savage says in the video.

Central World was later razed by redshirt protesters fleeing government troops, and a government spokesman has said a "white westerner was involved in the arson attack", seen at the building as the fire took hold.

While it is unfortunate that Mr. Savage's mother is distressed, I expect that the mothers of the 15 people killed are considerably more distressed. Also distressed are the many people who lost their businesses or employment because hoodlums burned the center and its shops down over a political dispute that the people victimized had absolutely nothing to do with.

And now it turns out that one of the hoodlums is an Englishman who has no business meddling in Thai politics in the first place.

Throw the book at him. Sorry about his mother, but that's life.

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P.S.: In the video, the narrator says, "That's the first time I have seen a farang in with the red shirts."

A "farang" is a person of European descent. It comes from a shortened version of "farangset" which is the Thai-ization of "francais." But the term is used for all Euro types (including white Americans, Aussies, etc.) because, after all, we all look alike.