The Metropolitan Police estimated that some 40,000 protesters had been present at about 9pm when Dharma Army chief Maj-General Chamlong Srimuang and media tycoon Sondhi Limthongkul took the stage.

As usual, though, the police estimate erred on the conservative side in an apparent effort to diminish the popularity of the protest movement.

To counter the official figure, the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), which organised the rally, and its mouthpiece the Phujadkarn Daily newspaper, claimed that more than 200,000 people had shown up to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

Independent agencies offered a variety of estimates, generally in between.

Most newspapers yesterday reported that around 100,000 protesters had gathered in Sanam Luang. Along with The Nation, however, international media outlets such as the Associated Press and Agence France Presse estimated the crowd to have numbered about 50,000.

Its own number crunching landed iTV in trouble. The station yesterday lodged a petition with the protest's organiser over allegations that some of its reporters had been harassed by protesters following an accusation that the station had misreported the number of protesters at 5,000 or 6,000 people.

Enraged protesters allegedly yelled at the station's reporters, scolding them for having "no ethics", while some even tried to manhandle crewmembers. The station felt it safer to discontinue its broadcast of the protest, the station's director Acha Suwanpakpaek said.

Acha submitted a tape recording to PAD to refute the allegation of wilfully misreporting attendance numbers, saying it was standard channel policy not to mention unverifiable numbers from such gatherings.

Suwit Watnoo, a PAD spokesman, said the organiser regretted the incident and would in future ask protesters to desist from interfering with the work of media representatives.

To help better calculate attendance numbers, Pongrapee Techapahapong of the website thaigoogleearth.com suggested a systematic way of measurement.

He explained that Sanam Luang covers 118,187 square metres, and that a single individual sitting tightly takes up an average 1 square metre. By comparing that figure to the area allocated for the protest, it can be estimated that at best 100,000 people could attend a gathering in the park.

On Sunday, however, the protesters did not occupy all of Sanam Luang as the Bangkok authorities had closed off about half of the park.

Supalak Ganjanakhundee

The Nation