These Protesters Want Mexican Police Prosecuted for Being Generally Terrible

"We were practically kidnapped. We couldn't talk to our families or lawyers. No one knew where we were, and we were given no information. We were incomunicados," Mexican student Hugo Bautista recalled the night he was swooped up in a major police operation during a protest.

Hugo, and his girlfriend Tania Damian, were among 11 protesters who could have spent decades in jail after being accused of belonging to a subversive group, attempted murder, and rioting. They were arrested at the end of a huge demonstration against the government of President Enrique Peña Nieto on November 20, 2014.

Watch the Video of the VICE News Live Stream of the November 20, 2014 Protest in Mexico City

Their release nine days later — thanks to pressure from social media, the press, and from human rights groups — was celebrated at the time as a major victory against the abuse of power. Now, some activists are saying this is not enough.

Five of the 11 are seeking the prosecution of the government officials from several different law enforcement institutions responsible for the alleged crimes of abuse of authority, illegal detention, torture, and falsifying evidence against them.

It amounts to a rare effort to push for public officials to face consequences for abuses and a who's who of Mexican human rights groups and prominent academics have put their weight behind it.

"We're fighting in favor of the freedom of expression and the right to protest," high profile political analyst Denise Dresser told a press conference to publicize the case. "Disobedience makes history. Today we're defending legitimate disobedience, and the task of a democratic state is to permit it instead of obliterate it."

The group underlines that it is seeking prosecution of the officials who carried out the abuses, those who gave the orders, and those who developed what they call the "strategy of repression" behind it all.

"The novel thing here is that normally the state can avoid taking responsibility by [blaming it] on who carried out the actions as if their superiors weren't there," said Margarita Griesbach, a lawyer from a children's rights NGO that has played a key role in the case. "But these things don't just happen. Somebody gives that order."

The huge protest at the heart of the case was held on the anniversary of the Mexican revolution at the height of the wave of public outrage triggered by the disappearance of 43 teaching students in the southern state of Guerrero after they were attacked by municipal police working with a local drug cartel in September last year.

Watch: VICE News Documentary. The Missing 43 - Mexico's Disappeared Students

The mostly peaceful protest included a few violent incidents, but what dominated its culmination were the police offensive and mass arrests at the end. The detainees were soon released, except for the 11 sent to high-security jail allegedly without access to their lawyers or the ability to contact family, while they were intimidated through both threats and violence.

The officers later claimed that the 11 had all been detained in the same spot while attempting to kill a police officer and screaming slogans, such as Die Peña.

They sought to underline the charge that they were members of a subversive organization by stressing that the detainees had called each other compa.

The term compa in Spanish is a shortened version of compañero, which means partner or companion, and is used by communists to mean comrade. However, with youths in Mexico compa has become a common term of endearment between friends, perhaps best translated as homie, mate, or bud.

The day after the arrests Interior Minister Miguel Angel Osorio Chong had justified the heavy policing methods used by saying they were necessary in order to protect the peaceful majority of protesters.

"Groups that are characterized by violence, and it's not the first time that they have done this, assaulted and attacked the security forces," he told Radio Fórmula "We have acted with firmness and determination, we are not going to allow them to hurt others, to hurt the institutions, because in that way they are also hurting Mexicans."

The official line softened as pressure to release the 11 grew with other participants in the demonstration flooding social media with videos and testimonies showing multiple inconsistencies in the charges, such as where the arrests took place.

They were all released within nine days — officially due to a lack of evidence.

"The Mexican system represses its citizens; anyone that doesn't think like them or agree with them," said Carlos Pichardo, one of the five detained now pushing for officials to take responsibility. "The authorities think they can do whatever they want. This is why we're here, this is what we're denouncing, this is why we're fighting."

The group that he and others formed has appropriated the term compas, labelling their movement Compas Human Rights.

Related: In Photos: The November 20, 2014 Protest in Mexico City

According to Griesbach, the human rights lawyer, the aggressive policing strategy on the November 20 march — as well as the post-arrest examples of fabricating evidence against detainees — was regularly applied during other protests between 2012 and 2014 against the current administration.

"This is part of a strategy of repression," she said.

While it is common to hear Mexican activists argue such points in international fora — such as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights — seeking to get the Mexican judicial system to crack down on abuses by Mexican officials is unheard of. So far none of the institutions named in the case have publicly responded. The Federal Police told VICE News that it had yet to receive notification of a criminal investigation from the Attorney General's Office where the activists filed the case.

"We are nervous about it," Griesbach said. "That is why we decided to make this a collective case so that we cannot be so easily picked out and criminalized."

Some of the victims, meanwhile, say the experience of being treated like very serious criminals has already marked them forever.

"The whole time there were abuses. They beat us, they cut me here," said Hugo Bautista, pointing to a long scar under his left eye. "They wouldn't tell us what was happening to us, then in transit to the federal penitentiary they abused us sexually, they touched us, they stuck their guns to our heads. But more than anything it was a psychological terror because we didn't know if we could be disappeared."

Hugo's girlfriend Tania, who studies at the same political science school, said the women detained faced less physical abuse but the mental pressures remained enormous.

"I'm afraid that one day I'm going to be kidnapped, not only when I'm in a protest, but when I go out walking. Because I'm one of the 11, because the government thinks it can kidnap for whatever reason," said Tania who insisted the couple would continue demonstrating. "Yes, I'm afraid, but we can't be paralyzed."

Follow Nathaniel Janowitz on Twitter: @ngjanowitz