In Mexico, 11 people who had been arrested in recent anti-government demonstrations and sent to maximum-security prisons have been released without charges.

The judge in Xalapa, who on Saturday ordered the release of the 8 men and 3 women, found insufficient evidence to prosecute the suspects for the crimes of criminal association, mutiny, and causing bodily harm.

The suspects were arrested in connection with protests pertaining to the 43 missing students from the Raul Isidro Burgos teachers college in Tixtla.

Saturday was the deadline for the judge to rule on whether or not to hold the 11 suspects over for trial.

Since the Sept. 26 kidnapping and likely mass murder of the students, there have been constant, mostly peaceful, marches against the government for its seeming compliance with a drug cartel that resulted in the disappearance of 43 students in the state of Guerrero.

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

Erika Guevara Rosas, AI's Americas director, as quoted in Fox News Latino, stated that 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.'"

A 12th person arrested separately in connection with the same case was also freed, and went on to describe, according to the LA Times, beatings and threats made by state security services.

Of the detained, Mexican media has reported,there were participants of the protest, a filmmaker, a Chilean national, and several people just who happened by the scene.

Six of the released gave a news conference Sunday in which they described how police beat and psychologically tortured them, and – in an apparent allusion to how the 43 students are thought to have been killed -- threatening to burn them alive.