During the 2013–2014 Thai political crisis, Prayut attempted to bring the rival parties to an agreement. When this failed, he staged a coup against the caretaker government of Yingluck Shinawatra on 22 May 2014. Yingluck herself had already been removed from office on 7 May by the Constitutional Court, over the controversial transfer of a senior security officer in 2011, and Niwatthamrong Boonsongpaisan was acting in her place. After the coup, Prayut repealed the 2007 constitution and established the NCPO to govern the nation, with himself as its head. Prayut quickly cracked down on dissent. He put in place controls on the media, imposed Internet censorship, declared a curfew nationwide (lifted 3 weeks later), banned gatherings of five or more persons and arrested both politicians and anti-coup activists, some of whom were charged with sedition and tried in military courts. These limits on freedom of speech were justified on the basis of promoting national reconciliation.