Richie Rivera, 18, watched a dozen hooded, armed men kidnap his brother Roy in Monterrey two years ago. After a ransom they paid was never honored, Richie and his mother conducted their own investigation and scoured the morgue. His bravest act has been to go public with the story, holding signs in public squares and giving speeches to hundreds of people, even while his actions could incite the kidnappers to take revenge on him. In a similar case in Chihuahua, public pressure actually shamed criminals into liberating an abducted man. While armed anti-crime citizen groups have won headlines, a nonviolent resistance to rule by criminal gangs persists in Mexico.

Photo by Osvaldo Hernández, Waging Nonviolence.

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