By James Hookway and Wilawan Watcharasakwet
BANGKOK--Pop-up protests are spreading around Thailand's capital in a growing show of dissent against the latest in a long line of military juntas here.
The rallies, lasting an hour or two at a time, aren't what the generals had in mind when they staged the 12th successful coup d'état in Thailand's modern history Thursday. Troops seized one pro-democracy leader at a protest site in western Bangkok that day, firing shots in the air to disperse the crowds. Elsewhere in the city, soldiers detained four leaders of the populist Red Shirts movement as the coup unfolded and later held two former prime ministers. (Click here to read more about the latest developments in Thailand.)
For good measure, soldiers rounded up rival protesters who had been rallying for the overthrow of the country's elected government. In all, nearly 200 people have been ordered to turn themselves in at an army camp amid Buddhist temples and spires of the city's historic old quarter.
And now the biggest question for Thailand is whether its new military leader, Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha, will try to include Red Shirts and other critics in his plans for Thailand's future. Or will he sideline the millions of Thais who voted for the government he toppled, as well as many others who oppose the putsch.
Armed troops squared off against roughly 1,000 demonstrators at Victory Monument in the center of Bangkok, with one of the rally organizers declaring a "curfew" on the soldiers. "The streets should be handed back to the people," said Chinawat Chankrachang, 22 years old, as some of the crowd pushed back against soldiers carrying riot shields. Some women at the rally stripped to their bras to show that they were unarmed.
"I opposed the government before, I hate Thaksin Shinawatra," said Piyatida Paosopa, referring to the billionaire populist who was overthrown in Thailand's last coup 2006 and whose allies have won every election since. "But because we don't accept the voice of the majority in this country, we now have a dictatorship. This is unacceptable," the 30-year-old businesswoman said. "I just want an election and for people to accept the outcome."
Earlier in the day, a few hundred protesters thronged around a McDonald's burger restaurant in downtown Bangkok. Some of the crowd wore improvised masks depicting anticoup activist Sombat Boongnamanong, who refused to turn himself in to the military. They held up slogans such as "Catch Me If You Can" or taped images of Mr. Sombat's face to a figure of McDonald's clown mascot Ronald McDonald.
As well as the growing protests, Gen. Prayuth has a worsening international backlash to contend with. The U.S. has cut military aid to the country and canceled a series of military exercises with Thailand, while investors worry Thailand's economy will continue to shrink as political uncertainty deepens.
Gen. Prayuth, a 60-year-old career officer known for his loyalty to Thailand's royal family, so far has given no sign of easing back.
On Sunday, he warned people to stay away from the small protests now mushrooming around the country like a real-life version of the old Whac-A-Mole ( arcade game. The junta also ruled that all cases involving resistance to the coup or infringing Thailand's strict laws outlawing criticism of its royal family could be tried in military courts. Gen. Prayuth also said through his spokesman that soldiers are continuing to unearth what they describe as war weapons stashed in secret caches by the ousted government's supporters.
To be sure, many Thais have applauded the coup because of growing fears in recent weeks of armed clashes between supporters of the ousted civilian government and their royalist opponents. Antigovernment protesters have argued that the elected government had used its large parliamentary majority to trample over the country's democratic checks and balances. But the flash-mob style protests, often driven by social media, are complicating Gen. Prayuth's efforts to both restore order and sell his coup d'état to the international community.
It isn't clear whether these sporadic protests around Bangkok and elsewhere will evolve into a sustained campaign against the coup. With many of the Red Shirts' prominent leaders still in detention, lower-ranking members of the activist group, which is formally known as the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship, have been improvising their own ad hoc response.
Robert Amsterdam, a Canadian lawyer acting for the group, said by telephone that the Red Shirts are assessing whether it is possible to establish a government-in-exile to challenge the authority of Gen. Prayuth's junta. He said such a move would depend on whether any members of the previous government would be able to leave the country.
"I think the speed and severity of what happened caught them by surprise. They are hunkered down waiting to see how it plays out," said Paul Quaglia, director at Bangkok-based risk assessment firm PQA Associates. "But it would be a mistake to assume they will just swallow this. They are still pretty organized at a grass-roots level. That's why the military has come down on them so hard."
Formed in the aftermath of the 2006 coup, the Red Shirts at first were little more than a support group for ousted leader billionaire telecoms maven Thaksin Shinawatra and the populist policies he used to transform the political culture of what had been a deeply feudal society.
Mr. Thaksin is still wildly popular in largely rural northern and northeastern Thailand, despite a corruption conviction and allegations of disloyalty to the country's revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej that have kept him in self-imposed exile since 2008. In poorer parts of the country, it isn't uncommon to see his portrait displayed in ordinary people's homes.
On Sunday, Mr. Thaksin used his Twitter account to urge that Thailand's military leaders treat the country's people with respect. "Please treat everybody under rules that are internationally accepted," he wrote.
After pro-Thaksin rallies on the streets of Bangkok turned violent in 2010, provoking security forces to launch a crackdown that ultimately claimed nearly 100 lives, many Red Shirts returned home with a much deeper sense of grievance. "That moment was a turning point for us. Now we know that what we are fighting for is democracy and an end to the double standards that exist in the country, the way there is one law for the rich and another for the poor," said Thongpan Thalangtham, a retired colonel in Thailand's northeastern province of Roi Et, in an interview earlier this year.
Analysts and members of the Red Shirt movement said it could take weeks for the group to regroup to stage significant protests, despite the pop-up protests around Bangkok over the weekend and earlier displays of dissent on Friday. The Red Shirts' core leadership is currently being held in an army camp while former prime ministers Yingluck Shinawatra, Mr. Thaksin's youngest sister, and Niwattumrong Boonsongpaisan, once an executive at one of his companies, will be detained for up to a week, the army has said.
"At the moment we're just waiting to see what will happen and we are afraid for the leaders' safety," said a Red Shirt activist in Bangkok who asked not to be identified. "We accept the coup took place and we have to be patient, but we will make our voice heard."
Meanwhile, the initiative is moving toward a much more diverse group of demonstrators, some of whom said they had previously sided with the Red Shirts' critics in the opposition Democrat Party.
Many of the participants at a rally at Victory Monument in central Bangkok on Saturday stressed that they had no links to the ousted government. "I didn't vote for the last government. I didn't like their policies, and I don't like Thaksin Shinawatra," said one protester, 27-year-old Nattapong Kaewbaen.
Mr. Chinawat, meanwhile, who says he previously attended Red Shirt rallies, described using Facebook and the Line instant-messaging service to help shepherd the first protest at Victory Monument on Saturday afternoon
"At first I thought only 40 or 50 people would come. But when people saw on social media that we were here at Victory Monument, they came out to join us," Mr. Chinawat said. "This is our way of showing people not to be afraid, that it's all right to ask for democracy."
Newley Purnell, Nopparat Chaichalearmmongkol and Warangkana Chomchuen contributed to this article.
Write to James Hookway at james.hookway@wsj.com
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