Defiant protesters take to the streets despite warning from coup leader

(26 May 2014) Protestors in Thailand on Monday defied a warning from the country's coup leader to stop opposing the military takeover. Several hundred people spread across a busy Bangkok road junction on Monday evening, holding up banners and shouting slogans demanding an election and for the army to stop intervening in Thai politics. Just hours earlier, in a speech following royal endorsement of his new position, General Prayuth Chan-ocha warned citizens not to cause trouble, not to criticise, not to protest, or else face a return to the "old days" of street violence. After declaring martial law May 20, Prayuth invited political rivals and Cabinet ministers for two days of brief peace talks to resolve the crisis. But those talks lasted just four hours. At the end of the meeting, Prayuth ordered everyone inside detained and half an hour later he appeared on state television declaring the coup. Thursday's coup, Thailand's second in eight years, deposed an elected government that had insisted for months that Thailand's fragile democracy was under attack from protesters, the courts, and finally the army that had rendered it powerless. The country is deeply split between an elite establishment based in Bangkok and the south that cannot win elections on one side, and a poorer majority in the north that has begun to realise political and economic power on the other. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...