Lebanon is governed by a delicate power-sharing system to maintain the balance between the country's many sects. It is unlike many other Arab countries where protests have been against rulers who have governed for decades.
"We are here to bring down the sectarian system in Lebanon because it is more of a dictatorial system than dictatorship systems themselves," said protester Rahshan Saglam.
Lebanon suffered a 15-year civil war which ended in 1990 and killed 150,000 people. Major sectarian violence, threatening to tip the country into a new civil war, also broke out in 2008.
The organisers handed out a leaflet saying they demanded a "secular, civil, democratic, socially just and equal state" and called for an increase in the minimum wage and lower prices for basic goods. A Facebook page about the event showed 2,656 people due to attend the protest but only a few hundred showed up and marched along a route that was a frontline during the civil war.