Members of the ‘Pirab Kao’ (White Dove) group wear T-shirts with anti-coup messages during yesterday’s campaign calling for the lifting of martial law and the use of the 1997 Constitution, as well as an election within 60 days.

Chanapat na Nakhon and Waranchai Chokchana led the group calling themselves "Phirab Kao'' (White Dove) and making speeches on the stage outside Thammasat University.

They took turns to attack Sonthi and erected a placard with a message "In memory of a brave taxi driver',' referring to Nuamthong Praiwal, 60, who slammed his taxi into a tank at the Royal Plaza shortly after the coup. Nuamthong hung himself from a flyover on Vipavadi Rangsit Road early yesterday in a fatal protest against the coup.

The group distributed leaflets attacking the CNS, saying they had broken the law, destroyed democracy and torn up the Constitution.

Ninrat Bunyaratpan, 35, said she joined the protest because she believed the CNS was wrong to seize power from an elected government. She said what the CNS claimed as reforming politics was really an attempt to perpetuate the power of vested interest groups, including one that had earlier asked for a Royally appointed prime minister.

Krairerk Lapsiriwong, 57 said the group was not a "political undercurrent'' stirring up subversive acts as the CNS may believe. He just wanted the CNS to return power to the public.