Lines of police stood by as a crowds of people chanting "no dictatorship", some carrying anti-junta banners, marched peacefully on Bangkok's Democracy Monument, against the orders of a government widely condemned for using draconian measures to silence detractors.
The protest was to mark the ninth anniversary of a coup against the government of Thaksin Shinawatra that many Thais see as the trigger for an intractable conflict that is showing no signs of abating.
