Free Thailand July 2014 | Page 25

Another Dark Day in JuntaLand About half a dozen soldiers took education minister Chaturon Chaisang into custody in a chaotic scene at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand, where he had just finished giving a surprise news conference. When the news conference was finished and Chaturon was being interviewed by Thai journalists, soldiers entered the room, surrounded him and escorted him out through a crowd of reporters. Before being hustled into an elevator, Chaturon said: “I’m not afraid. If I was afraid, I wouldn’t be here.” Chaturon called for elections and warned that resistance to the army overthrow could grow, which could lead to “a disaster for this country”. Before his detention Chaturon said a “coup d’etat is not a solution to the problems or conflicts in Thai society, but will make the conflicts even worse”. He said he would not resist arrest or go underground, but since he did not “accept the coup, I could not report to those who staged it”. “I still insist to use my own rights and liberty to call for returning the country to democracy”