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Trending: BBC Trending in Mexico: 6 months after the Ayotzinapa 43

MEXICO-STUDENTS-CRIME-PROTEST

28/03/2015

BBC Trending in Mexico: 6 months after the Ayotzinapa 43

BBC World Service - Trending, BBC Trending in Mexico: 6 months after the Ayotzinapa 43

An audience in Mexico City debates whether recent protests add up to a ‘Mexican Spring’

An audience in Mexico City debates whether recent protests add up to a ‘Mexican Spring’.

Six months ago this week, 43 students from Ayotzinapa teachers training college in Mexico went missing while on their way to a protest - feared murdered by the cartels with government complicity. Angry Mexicans took to the streets but also went online, with millions of tweets targeting the government. It has prompted what many say is the country's biggest political crisis in two decades.
 
BBC Trending has assembled a panel of some of Mexican social media's most influential voices, for a special extended edition.  In front of an audience in Mexico City, we'll be asking whether the millions of Mexicans using Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to protest levels of violence, and to stand up for freedom of speech, add up to a "Mexican Spring"?
 
The programme features reporting from Guerrero state, from the spot the students clashed with police. We explore the Facebook networks of ordinary Mexicans who say hundreds of their missing relatives are buried in mass graves in the same hills the authorities have been searching for the bodies of the 43.
 
Social media is also being used to lampoon Mexico's wealthy. We report on the "Mirrey" ("My King") phenomenon.  Young men photographed with shirts open and in nonchalant poses, the sons of the rich and powerful, are attracting ironic comments and millions of views.  What's really behind it?
 
On the stage with Mukul Devichand will be Chumel Torres, the YouTube star many call "Mexico's Jon Stewart," leading investigative journalist Lydiah Cacho and political commentator Federico Arreola.

(Photo: Mexico students' crime protest. Credit: Alfredo Estrella / Getty Images)

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