The Night of the Pencils was a series of “kidnappings and forced disappearances, followed by the torture, rape, and murder of a number of young students in September 1976″. It was thought to be a direct response to the protests of student members of the Unión de Estudiantes Secundarios (Union of High School Students), who protested and demanded education reform and political reform. Despite the fact that they were not guerrilla terrorists, the junta saw their protest as a left-wing threat to their ideal society. “The students were held for months in several illegal detention centers, where they were tortured, some of them raped, and ultimately presumed murdered. Only four of the 10 detainees are known to have survived.”