The Cuban activist Avana de la Torre led a protest on Tuesday in front of the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona as hundreds of people attended the first concert of the Spanish tour of singer-songwriter Silvio Rodríguez, according to ClickCuba.
The group of protesters, dressed in black T-shirts bearing the slogans "Free Cubans," carried Cuban flags and signs with messages such as "Boycott," "Don't finance the dictatorship," and "No to the accomplices of repression in Cuba."
Avana de la Torre, a resident of Europe and one of the most visible anti-Castro activists on the continent, posted a powerful message on her social media directed at both the troubadour and the audience that paid to see him.
"Those who pay for a ticket to applaud him cannot hide behind ignorance. They have not experienced what we Cubans have lived through, but they are fully aware of what is happening in Cuba and choose to look the other way, clinging to the comfortable romanticism of his songs and whitewashing the regime. That is neither solidarity nor empathy with the Cuban people: it is complicity," wrote the activist in her Facebook post.
The protest garnered immediate media attention: the demonstrators appeared on local Catalan television, and the agency EFE captured images of the gathering alongside those of the audience arriving at the Liceu.
Inside the theater, about 2,300 people packed the hall to hear the troubadour, who was returning to Barcelona a decade after his last concert in the city. Some in the audience shouted slogans such as “Cuba yes, yankees no!” and “Long live Cuba, long live Fidel!”.
During the outdoor protest, the demonstrators recalled one of the most controversial episodes in Rodríguez's political career: his signing of the document "Message from Havana for Friends Who Are Far Away," published on April 19, 2003, just eight days after the executions of Lorenzo Enrique Copello Castillo, Bárbaro Leodán Sevilla García, and Jorge Luis Martínez Isaac.
Those executions took place in the context of the so-called Black Spring, when the regime imprisoned 75 peaceful opponents.
The letter, also signed by figures such as Alicia Alonso, Omara Portuondo, and Chucho Valdés, defended the "strong measures" taken by the Cuban government in response to international criticism. More than fifty artists, including Pedro Almodóvar, Javier Bardem, Joaquín Sabina, and Joan Manuel Serrat, issued a counter-manifesto.
A more recent episode adds to this history: in March 2026, Rodríguez publicly requested an AKM rifle on his blog in light of a potential U.S. military intervention in Cuba, and days later the Minister of the Armed Forces, Álvaro López Miera, presented him with the weapon at an official MINFAR event presided over by Miguel Díaz-Canel.
Avana de la Torre made it clear that the mobilization in Barcelona will not be an isolated event: "In every city where Silvio performs, there will be dignified Cubans reminding him that Cuba needs freedom, not music in service of the dictatorship."
The Spanish tour of Rodríguez includes ten concerts in eight cities until October 4, with stops in Zaragoza, Bilbao, Valencia, A Coruña, Sevilla, and Murcia before concluding at the Movistar Arena in Madrid. Following the protest at the Liceu, Cubans in exile have already requested that the President of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, declare Silvio Rodríguez "persona non grata" before his performance in Madrid.
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