In Thailand, the simple act of reading in public has become an act of resistance, AP reported. On Saturday evening in Bangkok, a week and a half after the army seized power in a coup, about a dozen people gathered in the middle of a busy, elevated walkway connecting several of the capital's most luxurious shopping malls. As pedestrians trundled past, the protesters sat down, pulled out book titles such as George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four," a dystopian novel about life in a totalitarian surveillance state - and began to read. In a country where the army has vowed to crack down on anti-coup protesters demanding elections and a return to civilian rule, in a place where you can be detained for simply holding something that says "Peace Please" in the wrong part of town, the small protest was a major act of defiance - a quiet demonstration against the army's May 22 seizure of power and the repression that has accompanied it. The coup, Thailand's second in eight years, deposed an elected government that had insisted for months that the nation's fragile democracy was under attack from protesters, the courts and, finally, the army. The junta's leader says the military had to intervene to restore order after half a year of debilitating protests that had crippled the government and triggered sporadic violence that killed 28 people and injured more than 800. In their bid to maintain peace, the army also has made clear that it will tolerate no dissent. The junta has censored the media and issued warnings to citizens to avoid inciting conflict and antagonizing the divided country's political rivals. The list of targets so far has been long. At least 14 partisan TV networks have been shut down along with nearly 3,000 unlicensed community radio stations. Independent international TV channels such as CNN and BBC have been blocked along with more than 300 Web pages, including New York-based Human Rights Watch's Thailand page. Journalists and academics have been summoned by the army. Activists have fled the country. On Wednesday, a sudden interruption of access to Facebook fueled widespread speculation that the nation's new rulers were testing their censorship power; the junta, though, insisted it was merely a technical glitch. -- SPA 19:20 LOCAL TIME 16:20 GMT تغريد
