A Chiang Mai-based group of academics yesterday urged the public to oppose the government's amnesty bill.
The move came as a number of red-shirt MPs announced they will not vote for the bill in its second reading today.
In a statement released yesterday, the academics, from Midnight University, said a House committee working on the bill after its first reading had distorted the meaning.
The original bill sought to grant an amnesty to rank-and-file protesters only.
The revised version would expand the scope of the bill considerably, granting an amnesty to protest leaders and state officials responsible for deaths during the 2010 political violence.
The blanket amnesty which the government seeks under the revised bill is tantamount to sweeping the dirt of previous political violence under the carpet, they said.
Those responsible for the violence would then be able to get away with it.
Pheu Thai's ''distortion'' of the bill _ it has a majority on the scrutiny committee which made the changes _ would lead to a new wave of conflict, the group warned.
The real motive for the change could not be seen as anything but an attempt to serve the ''big boss'', the group said, referring to ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
Thaksin lives in self-imposed exile to avoid a two-year jail term for abuse of power.
For the sake of their relationship with Pheu Thai, certain red-shirt MPs were reluctant to speak up to oppose the blanket amnesty, the group said.
Those red shirts should realise that any party which refused to listen to the opinions of its supporters no longer deserved to have their support, the academics said.
Pheu Thai list-MP Weng Tojirakarn, who is also a co-leader of the red-shirt United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship, said he, Deputy Commerce Minister Nattawut Saikuar and Samut Prakan MP Worachai Hema would abstain from voting on the revised bill.
Mr Nattawut is also a red-shirt core leader while Mr Worachai was the sponsor of the original amnesty bill which covered only political protesters.
Mr Weng said he was ready to face any punishment from Pheu Thai. He insisted his decision not to comply with the party's resolution to vote for the bill was aimed at reminding it about what was right and wrong.