Mexico drops charges in Veracruz "Twitter Terorrism" case

Xeni Jardin 5:58 pm Wed Sep 21, 2011

One day after three dozen bodies were found dumped on a busy Veracruz street, authorities in the same Mexican state released a man and a woman and dropped terrorism charges that they faced for tweeting rumors about nonexistent drug cartel attacks.

Good news for the accused, but bad news came today for future users of social media in Mexico:

Criticism of the terrorism case led the Veracruz state legislature to pass a law Tuesday creating the charge of disturbing the peace to cover the situation purportedly created by the pair.
But state Interior Secretary Gerardo Buganza told Milenio Television on Wednesday that Gilberto Martinez and Maria de Jesus Bravo would not have to face the new charge.

Defense lawyer Claribel Guevara welcomed their release and praised the support they received from free speech advocates and others.

"Far from scaring people (to stay away from tweeting), it has shown there is great unity among users of social networks," Guevara said. "We all won because this is a victory for freedom of expression."

More in Spanish at El Universal and at CNN en Español.

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