Public event in Madrid: Social protests in Latin America

April 8, 2022

Today, on April 8, the Forum 2000 Foundation, in cooperation with Fundación Internacional para la Libertad and Cátedra Mario Vargas Llosa, organized a conference at Universidad CEU San Pablo in Madrid to discuss the reasons for the recent wave of mass demonstrations in the region.

The speakers addressed the common causes of the protests across different Latin American countries and discussed their democratizing potential in various authoritarian regimes.

Speakers:

  • Tamara Sujú, Human rights defense attorney, Venezuela
  • Rosa María Payá Acevedo, President, Latin American Youth Network for Democracy
  • Erika Guevara Rosas, Americas Director, Amnesty International, Mexico
  • Christopher Sabatini, Senior Research Fellow for Latin America, Chatham House, Great Britain

The discussion was moderated by Darío Lopérfido, Former Secretary of Culture of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, Argentina

Tamara Suju: "We must distinguish protests under  dictatorships and under democracies."

Erika Guevara: "The response of authoritarian and democratic governments towards the protests has been the same: accusations of terrorism and violence to mitigate them."

Christopher Sabatini: "In democratic governments, when the security forces violate the human rights of protesters, they are investigated, they are held accountable. In dictatorships, nobody calls their attention."