The Thai Journalists Association yesterday issued a 10-point action plan in response to recent mobbing of the media, including the picketing of National Multimedia Group Plc and Manager Group.

The plan calls for a boycott of reporting on any activities of groups with a history of unruly behaviour while the media will run coordinated investigative reports on mob movements in order to reveal their unjust conduct, TJA chairman Phatthara Khamphithak said.

A grand meeting will be held on Wednesday to show that the media stand united.

"The session will also highlight the motto 'To intimidate the press is to intimidate the people' to convey a strong message to those with ill intent toward us," he said.

The countermeasures came out of a four-hour meeting with other press groups, including the Thai Broadcast Journalists Association, the Press Council of Thailand, the Business Reporters Association and the Council of Academics on Journalism.

Among the many suggestions are displaying stickers on microphones and tape recorders to make them visible during television interviews, and publishing periodic reports on press freedom in Thailand to enlighten the international community.

Anti-government activist Chamlong Srimuang and other leading members of the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) visited the Nation Group office to lend moral support to the editorial staff of Kom Chad Luek newspaper. They presented flower bouquets and signed messages of appreciation to the Thai-language daily.

Group editor Thepchai Yong thanked the well-wishers for coming. He said last Thursday's blockade of the Nation Group's premises had never happened before and that it was painful for him.

"I am impressed, and not feeling left alone anymore," he said.

Suriyasai Katasila, a PAD leader who also visited the Nation Group, called on Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra to show responsibility for the siege last Thursday.

Chamlong said earlier that people were now receiving neither assistance nor help from authorities when they were threatened by hostile crowds, especially in the other two cases when police did absolutely nothing.

"The people cannot count on the police for what happened, which are obviously criminal acts," he said.

He cited the violent protest by local hecklers at a Democrat Party rally in Chiang Mai last week and the motorcade of people calling themselves "The Lovers of the Father" from Bangkok to Hua Hin in Prachuap Khiri Khan.

Chamlong said PAD members would stage a rally at Makkawan Bridge on Friday - the first after today's polls - but denied that PAD would demonstrate in front of the Siam Paragon shopping mall again the next day.