Night of the Pencils

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For the film, see Night of the Pencils (film) (1986).

The Night of the Pencils (in Spanish, La Noche de los Lápices) was a series of kidnappings and forced disappearances followed by torture of a number of young students by the Argentine police, during the last dictatorship (known as the National Reorganization Process).

The kidnappings were performed by the Buenos Aires Provincial Police (under Coronel Ramón Camps and Commissioner General Miguel Etchecolatz), mostly in the night between 16 September and 17 September 1976. The victims were 10 students, mainly current or former activists and members of the Secondary Student Union in the city of La Plata, who had been demanding the creation of a free bus pass. Such demands were deemed subversive by the dictatorship. The students were held for months in several illegal detention centers, and tortured. Six of them were killed; the other four were released at different times between 1978 and 1980.

The story of the students from their kidnapping until their death or release was depicted by the 1986 film Night of the Pencils, directed by Héctor Olivera.

The testimony of Pablo Díaz, the last survivor to be released, served as the basis for a song with the same title by Canarian singer Rogelio Botanz.