BANGKOK – In a chilling move apparently aimed at neutralizing critics and potential opposition, Thailand’s new army junta on Saturday ordered dozens of outspoken activists, academics and journalists to surrender themselves to military authorities.
The junta, which is already holding most of the government it ousted in a coup Thursday in secret locations against their will, said it would keep former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and others in custody for up to a week to give them “time to think” and keep the country calm.
Two days after the army seized power in the nation’s first coup in eight years, it also faced scattered protests that came amid growing concern about the junta’s intentions. Also Saturday, the military dissolved the Senate – the last functioning democratic institution left – and absorbed its legislative powers.
“Military rule has thrown Thailand’s rights situation into a free fall,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The army is using draconian martial law powers to detain politicians, activists and journalists, to censor media, and to ban all public gatherings. This rolling crackdown needs to come to an end immediately.”
At least 100 people, mostly top politicians, have been detained incommunicado so far. Deputy army spokesman Col. Weerachon Sukondhapatipak said they were all being well-treated and the military’s aim was to achieve a political compromise.
Weerachon said all those held have had their cellphones confiscated because “we don’t want them communicating with other people. We want them to be themselves and think on their own.
“This is because everybody involved in the conflict needs to calm down and have time to think,” he said. “We don’t intend to limit their freedom – it’s to relieve the pressure.”
In a military order broadcast at the start of the day, the junta summoned 35 more people, including politicians, political activists and, for the first time, outspoken academics and some journalists.
The junta also ordered banks to freeze the assets of two top politicians it had summoned but who remain in hiding, including the ousted education minister and the chief of the former ruling party.
Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha, who leads the junta, has justified the coup by saying the army had to act to avert violence and end half a year of political turmoil triggered by anti-government protests that killed 28 people and injured more than 800.
The intractable divide plaguing Thailand today is part of an increasingly precarious power struggle between an elite, conservative minority backed by powerful businessmen and staunch royalists based in Bangkok and the south that no longer can win elections, and the political machine of exiled former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his supporters in the rural north who backed him because of populist policies such as virtually free health care.
