The National Rifle Association, various anti-abortion outfits and a lobby group for wind power, among others, set up stalls and handed out goodies to passers-by.

Among them was American lobby group the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which takes an anti-regulatory stance and is notorious for suggesting that climate change is not a problem.

Last year, a YouTube video of a chain-smoking Indonesian two-year-old prompted outrage among health-lobby groups in the West.