Thai students mock junta at football match

Thai university students lampooned the military at a football game on Saturday in a rare act of open defiance against the junta, which has strangled political expression since seizing power two years ago.

In a colourful parade around the Bangkok stadium where crowds gathered to watch a match between two of kingdom's top universities, students brought out elaborate hand-made floats and banners mourning prolonged military rule.

The parade is a long-running tradition at the annual game between rival universities Thammasat and Chulalongkorn and is often provocative and political.

But the show has taken on new significance in the past two years as a rare chance to speak out under the military junta that outlawed all political activities in Thailand after toppling an elected government in May 2014.