Angry Thai anti-coup protests despite junta warnings

BANGKOK: Thai anti-coup protesters squared off against soldiers in Bangkok Sunday in a growing show of dissent despite warnings from the ruling junta to end rallies, after the army consolidated all law-making authority.

The military has detained former premier Yingluck Shinawatra and scores of other ousted government leaders and political figures following a coup that has provoked sharp international criticism.

Dozens of protesters with large banners that read "Junta Out" and "Stop Coup" staged a boisterous demonstration, jeering angrily and pushing at lines of armed soldiers outside a shopping mall in the heart of Bangkok´s retail district.

At least two protesters were taken away by the troops, according to AFP journalists at the scene. One man was dragged away bleeding, while other demonstrators spat at soldiers as pockets of defiance against the army´s takeover continued to multiply.

The protest came after the junta issued a fresh warning on Sunday against the use of social media to "incite" unrest."

I ask for people´s understanding on the current situation and that they refrain from anti-coup rallies, because democracy cannot proceed normally at the moment," said army spokesman Colonel Winthai Suvaree.

He said those detained by the military were being held without restraints and had not been "tortured or beaten" and reiterated that they would be released within seven days.

Those being held include politicians and leaders from both sides of the country´s warring protest movements, while the army has summoned academics and journalists seen as critical to the coup.

Thailand has been rocked by persistent and sometimes violent political turmoil for nearly a decade, with bitter divisions intensifying in the years following the 2006 ouster of Yingluck´s brother Thaksin by royalist generals.

Thaksin and his allies have won every election in Thailand this century, helped by the polling might of his support base among the working class and communities in the north and northeast.

But he is reviled by parts of the elite, the Bangkok middle class and southerners -- an alliance with wide influence in the establishment and army but little electoral success. (AFP)