Outrage has been growing throughout the country of Mexico, since 43 college students went missing in the state of Guerrero on Sep. 26.

The students were from an all male teachers college in Ayotzinapa, a rural town in Guerrero. It is a state where poverty is largely divided from wealth and the indigenous people are oppressed by their government.

Like many students in the United States, the students in Ayotzinapa were activists who were constantly fighting for their human rights by protesting and voicing their opinions. The students protested against social issues that they disagreed with and demanded a change in their corrupt government. In return, their government abducted and murdered the protesting teachers in the city of Iguala, Guererro.

Mexico has a constitution that grants various freedoms and rights to their people, including the freedom of speech and the freedom of protest. These rights were grossly disrupted by the government of Mexico and in turn failed these students paid the ultimate price.

According to authorities, Jose Luis Abarca, then mayor of Ayotzinapa and Maria de los Angeles Pineda, his wife, were allegedly upset that protesting students had commandeered buses to attend a demonstration. They supposedly didn’t want to protestors to disrupt an important political event they were headlining, thus compelling Pineda and husband to give local police an order to make sure that didn’t happen. After shooting six students and wounding several others, witnesses said, police handed the remaining 43 students over to a local drug gang, Guerreros Unidos, to finish the job.

The heinous acts of violence occurring in Mexico cannot be justified, and the kidnapping and mass murder of the 43 students is an absolute atrocity. Mexico is on the brink of a revolution and the fury is broadening across the world.

It’s a price that came at their lives that the students had to pay for using their voice to speak their opinions and it’s something that students in the United Stated seem to take for granted.

The group of students who were kidnapped received a lot of negative criticism because of the ideology the school was founded on. Founded in 1926 Escuela Normal Rural Raúl Isidro Burgos is still closely linked to its Marxist roots, as a revolutionary college, the school’s heroes were Marx and Lenin and Che Guevara.

The students consistently took various risks to stand up for the issues that they believed in. They wanted to make a difference and whether people agreed with their beliefs or not, kidnapping and murdering them was not the solution.

It is a tragedy and it’s a crime committed to silence the voices and views of a group of educated and strong-willed students.

The involvement of drug cartels with the local governments affects the families of the people of Guerrero, and they have taken it to a new extreme. Families and friends of the students have been living in angst and the demand for answers grows more each day.