The military regime has denied that anyone detained since martial law was declared in the kingdom has been tortured after an international human rights group claimed there had been a number of serious transgressions.
Responding to an Amnesty International (AI) report issued on Thursday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Sek Wannamethee said the report is beneficial and constructive in terms of promoting human rights protection.
The AI report called for the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) to halt what it called a "100-day spiral of repression" and restore civil rights throughout the country. The report said, according to the Internet Dialogue on Law Reform, the military had summoned 571 people between May 22 and Sept 5. Of these, 275 were detained, 86 will go to trial, of which 61 will be in military courts. Fifteen are lese majeste cases.
It called secret arrests and threats against family members "a clear case of political persecution and an attempt to silence dissent".
It said that since 2006, courts have systematically denied bail in lese majeste cases, and discriminated against red shirts and United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) members.
One section of the report carried a short statement by Kritsuda Khunasen, the Chon Buri red shirt who was detained by the army and then fled Thailand. She told AI that, "If I was too slow when answering ... I was beaten with a fist to my face, head, stomach and body." Blindfolded and handcuffed with duct tape, she said, she gave interrogators the answers they wanted including that ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra gave extensive funds to the UDD.
But Mr Sek said the report did not mention the context of the situation in Thailand before the May 22 coup, when several incidents of violence erupted. He said the report did not reflect the opinion of the majority of Thai people.
Based on several opinion polls, most people viewed that after the coup, their happiness and confidence in security were restored as well as national stability, he said.
NCPO spokesman Winthai Suwaree said the NCPO had never tortured anyone who was summoned to report to it, as was alleged in the AI report.
People who were summoned were those who had been involved in political conflicts in the past and those who were suspected of committing wrongdoing, Col Winthai said.
There was no discrimination in summoning these people and all processes were transparent and there were never complaints about any inappropriate action by the NCPO during this time, he said.
"We found there were some wrongdoers who distorted information," he said.
"We are asking human rights NGOs to carefully and thoroughly consider this issue so they do not become the tools of those who have hidden agendas."