Arrests at Mexican protest over missing students draw criticism from human rights group
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}A student wearing white clown makeup with the Spanish word for "justice" written on the side of his face, stands outside the Attorney General's office, in Mexico City, Saturday, Nov. 22, 2014, during a protest demanding the release of students arrested two days earlier, following a massive gathering in the Zocalo. Tens of thousands marched to the capital's main plaza Thursday, demanding that authorities find 43 missing college students, seeking to pressure the government on a day normally reserved for the celebration of Mexico's 1910-17 Revolution. (Foto AP/Marco Ugarte)
Eleven people arrested at a protest in Mexico City last week have been taken to maximum-security prisons, a move that a human rights agency is denouncing as excessive.
Mexico's Attorney General's Office announced Saturday that eight men and three women, who face charges including attempted homicide, were being held at prisons in the states of Nayarit and Veracruz that normally house dangerous inmates.
The 11 were among tens of thousands of people who gathered in Mexico City's main plaza to demand justice in the disappearance and apparent killing of 43 students from a rural teachers college.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Alejandro Jimenez of the non-governmental Mexican Institute of Human Rights and Democracy accused authorities of attempting to "criminalize" civil protest and of using the prison system for "political use."
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