Bangkok - Dozens of Thai students who were dragged away and held overnight by police after they staged an anti-coup protest in Bangkok Friday evening were "merely invited for talks", a senior police officer said Saturday.
The student protest was one of a handful of rare public acts of defiance that sprung up in the military controlled nation yesterday as it marked one year since then army chief Prayut Chan-O-Cha seized power, toppling the elected administration of Yingluck Shinawatra.
Political protests are currently banned in Thailand alongside criticising the junta.
Angry scuffles broke out late Friday between police and around 50 student protesters after some of the anti-coup demonstrators tried to chain themselves together outside a popular mall in the capital.
An AFP reporter on the scene saw teams of uniformed and plainclothes police dragging students away and into custody.
"Police merely invited them for talks they are not arrested," Major General Chayapol Chatchaidet, commander of Bangkok's zone six, which covers much of the city's downtown districts, told AFP.
"All 31 students have been freed this morning. No charge has been filed against anyone," he added.
Thailand's police and military routinely use the phrase "invited to talk" to describe detentions that are anything but voluntary.
AFP
