Repression on Massive Student Movement in Mexico

A massive student movement is underway in Mexico against the disappearance of 43 students in Mexico, suspected of being abducted and murdered. The students had gone to protest a speech by the Mayor’s wife, and it is suspected that the police captured them and handed them over to a drug cartel to have them killed.

Protesters have held President Enrique Pena Nieto responsible, and have set fire to the doors of the national palace in Mexico City. Mexico’s Attorney General has told parents the students were murdered by criminals on police orders. Three gang members have apparently confessed to loading the students on to trucks, murdering them at a landfill, burning their bodies and dumping their remains in a river.

The Mexico government has responded to the protests with brutal repression. Eight men and three women among the protestors are under arrest and being held in maximum-security facilities, and they also face charges of homicidal intent and organized crime.

The disappearances and brutal killing of the students, followed by the crackdown and arrests of protestors, are compounding the anger of Mexican people against the corrupt political system and repressive police force. “#YaMeCansé” or “I’m fed up” has become one of the rallying slogans of the massive protests, along with “#LibertadPresosPoliticos”, or “Freedom for Political Prisoners”.

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