Mexico Judge Orders Release of 11 Arrested over Violent Protests

VERACRUZ, Mexico – A Mexican judge on Saturday ordered the release of 11 people arrested over violent protests in support of 43 missing teacher trainees.

The judge in Xalapa, capital of the Gulf coast state of Veracruz, found insufficient evidence to prosecute the suspects – eight men and three women – for the crimes of criminal association, mutiny and causing bodily harm.

The suspects had been held in two maximum-security prisons in the states of Veracruz and Nayarit after their arrest on Nov. 20 in Mexico City’s main square.

Saturday was the deadline for the judge to rule on whether to hold the 11 suspects over for trial.

Two isolated violent incidents occurred during the Nov. 20 protests in Mexico City involving attacks on security forces with Molotov cocktails, rocks and firecrackers.

Tens of thousands of people gathered that day in the massive Zocalo square to demand the safe return of the 43 students who went missing on the night of Sept. 26 in the southern town of Iguala, Guerrero state.

Police officers from Iguala and the neighboring town of Cocula detained those 43 students that night at the orders of Iguala’s mayor and handed them over to the Guerreros Unidos gang, which killed them and burned the bodies to eliminate all traces of the victims, Mexican authorities say, citing statements by suspects in the case.

Corrupt municipal police targeted the students from a nearby teacher-training facility, according to some media accounts, after they had seized several buses for use in protests against education reform.

Earlier this week, London-based human rights group Amnesty International said the 11 suspects were being “unfairly held” and should be released immediately unless further evidence was presented.

“The evidence against the 11 protesters is so thin that it is incredibly hard to understand why they are still in detention, let alone in high-security facilities and treated as ‘high value criminals,’” Erika Guevara Rosas, AI’s Americas director, was quoted as saying.

“Such acts raise the question of whether there is a deliberate attempt to discourage legitimate protests,” she added.

In its statement on Thursday, AI also blamed the situation in Iguala on officials at the highest levels of government.

“Serious allegations of human rights violations and collusion between local authorities and criminals had been made before but federal and state authorities decided to take no action,” AI sa