- Title: Dissidents Garcia and Lopez ask 'tolerance' after students protest in Madrid
- Date: 13th December 2021
- Summary: MADRID, SPAIN (DECEMBER 13, 2021) (REUTERS) STUDENTS CHANTING (Spanish) "Get out fascists from University" STUDENT HOLDING BANNER (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) UNNAMED STUDENT SAYING: "They come with the aim of provoking, only to provoke conflict because they know that in this faculty Leopoldo Lopez is not welcome. He is not welcome because he is not wanted, because the normal stu
- Embargoed: 27th December 2021 20:06
- Keywords: Cuba Leopoldo Lopez Spain Venezuela Yunior Garcia dissidents
- Location: MADRID, SPAIN
- City: MADRID, SPAIN
- Country: Spain
- Topics: Europe,Government/Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA001F7VD4QV
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text:Cuban dissident Yunior Garcia and Venezuelan dissident Leopoldo Lopez held on Monday (December 13) a joint meeting at a Madrid University with students protesting their presence.
Some students from Complutense University tried to sabotage the event chanting "get out from the University fascists" and placing banners at the event's room.
"I hope that we will shout less and less things at each other and be willing to listen to what the other thinks," said Garcia during the event "Freedom without anger".
Cuban protest leader Yunior Garcia and his wife arrived in Madrid in mid-November.
The young playwright took a commercial flight to Spain after the communist-run Cuban government blocked a major protest he helped plan.
Garcia became a central figure in Cuba's dissident movement following protests in July that drew thousands onto the streets to demonstrate against shortages of basic goods, curbs on civil liberties and the handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
"There is no democracy in our countries and our dream, Cuba's, Nicaragua's, Venezuela's, is the same: freedom and free elections," said Leopoldo Lopez.
Venezuelan opposition politician arrived in Madrid in 2020 after spending a year at the Spanish ambassador's residence in Venezuela to escape house arrest.
Lopez was jailed in 2014 for leading violent protests against Maduro, and was released to house arrest in 2017.
From his Caracas home, he was a mentor to opposition leader Juan Guaido, who in 2019 invoked the constitution to assume an interim presidency and began a campaign to unseat Maduro.
(Production: Guillermo Martinez, Elena Rodriguez) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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