Students supporting an East Timor independence leader marched through the streets of Dili on Wednesday, defending the Nobel Peace Prize winner against Indonesian criticism.

The roughly 1,000 students dispersed only when the speaker of the East Timor Parliament accepted their written demand that the government stop verbal attacks on Bishop Carlos Felipe Ximenes Belo.

Belo and resistance leader Jose Ramos-Horta share this year’s peace prize for their efforts to win independence for East Timor, a former Portuguese colony invaded by Indonesia in 1975.