LatAm activist conference in Madrid met with protests

A conference held Monday at a Madrid university by three Latin American activists considered dissidents in their respective countries was met by a protest staged by a group of students.

The conference entitled "Voices of Repression" with the Cuban playwright and activist Yunior García, the Venezuelan opposition politician Leopoldo López, and Santiago Urbina, representative of a platform that brings together Nicaraguan opposition forces, was convened by a group of political science students from the Complutense University of Madrid.

It was met by a protest staged by another group of students carrying banners that read "Out with Miami's coup plotters!" and "López assassin".

Some thirty students shouted and whistled at the speakers and several of those attending the event, who defended themselves with claps and shouts of "Freedom, freedom."

The activists at the conference were demanding their right to express opposition to governments that they described as "dictatorial" and "authoritarian" in Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.

Initial tensions delayed the start of the conference for about half an hour.