On March 14, a group of Thais staged a peaceful protest outside the hotel where Prime Minister General Prayuth Chan-ocha was staying. Prayuth paid a visit to Japan on March 13-14 to attend the Third U.N. World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in the city of Sendai.
The Thai protesters, some masking themselves, held banners with damning statements: "No Appointed Prime Minister," "No Politicized Institutions," "No Fake Elections," and "Reject Future Authoritarian Rule."
Some of these statements were written in both Thai and Japanese. The banners were accompanied by horrific images of the Thai military brutally cracking down on red-shirt protesters on the streets of Bangkok in May 2010. In that event, 99 were killed and more than 2,000 injured.