Thailand Correspondent Bangkok - Pro-government groups aligned with former premier Thaksin Shinawatra yesterday mustered some 70,000 enthusiastic but peaceful supporters in a challenge to the right wing, anti-government People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD).

The event in a football stadium, under the banner of the pro-government TV programme Truth Today, was billed as a signal that a coup d'etat would not be tolerated by the people.

It also marked the launch of a propaganda drive by the pro-government groups to counter the PAD's version of recent events.

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