The European Union has voiced "extreme concern" about political detentions and censorship in Thailand, as the military junta chief met officials and began to set out plans for the country's future.
The EU, a key trade partner of the Southeast Asian nation, said only a clear plan for the country's return to democracy could allow its "continuous support" after the Thai military seized power last week and set about rounding up political figures, academics and activists.
"We are following current developments with extreme concern," the EU foreign affairs head Catherine Ashton said in a statement.
"We urge the military leadership to free all those who have been detained for political reasons in recent days and to remove censorship," she added.
The junta on Thursday added nearly 50 more names to the upwards of 250 people it has summoned, having held scores of people without charge at secret locations for up to a week.
Authorities have curtailed civil liberties under martial law and imposed a nightly curfew.
A week after seizing power, Thailand's coup leader General Prayuth Chan-ocha met central and regional officials and laid out three stages that he envisioned for the country before it could be returned to democratic rule, without giving a time frame.
The country would stay under "special law" during the first phase and then later set up a national assembly and "reform council", according to army spokeswoman Sirichan Ngathong.
Only then would the country start the process of preparing for elections, she said.
Thailand has seen 19 actual or attempted coups since 1932.
The regime freed some 30 people, including Niwattumrong Boonsongpaisan, who was caretaker premier at the time of the coup, on Thursday, a day after releasing leaders of the "Red Shirt" movement allied to the ousted government.
It has instructed all those set free to refrain from discussing politics under threat of prosecution in a military court.
Senior members of their rival protest movement, as well as former premiers Yingluck Shinawatra and Abhisit Vejjajiva have also been held and since released.
The current political turmoil centres on the divisive figure of Thaksin Shinawatra, Yingluck's older brother, who was deposed as prime minister by royalist generals in a 2006 coup and now lives in self-imposed exile to avoid prison for a corruption conviction.
His opponents in the establishment, military and among the Bangkok middle classes view the entire Shinawatra family as corrupt.
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