Mexico: 35 bodies in Veracruz, in presumed drug cartel mass killing

Police and members of a forensic team stand around bodies on a motorway in Boca del Rio, on the outskirts of Veracruz September 20, 2011. The bodies of 35 people with suspected links to organized crime were found in two abandoned trucks on a highway underpass in the eastern Mexican city of Veracruz on Tuesday, the local prosecutor said. (REUTERS/Stringer)

@BlogsOfWar put it best tonight: "The violence in Mexico rivals or exceeds that seen in of most of the global hotspots we're obsessed with."

Read more: Blog del Narco (Spanish), Associated Press (English).

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Mexico drops charges in Veracruz “Twitter Terorrism” case

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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Mexico: Narco-pets, exotic animals owned by captured drug lords, are flooding zoos

"As Mexican authorities capture a growing number of drug gang leaders, many of their pets are being driven from their gilded cages into more modest housing in the country's zoos. That's proving to be overwhelming for some institutions."

Associated Press video on YouTube: Narco-pets Overwhelm Mexico's Zoos.

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Mexico: Twitter Terrorism, Narco-Mapping, 3BallMTY and “pointy boots” (Xeni on The Madeleine Brand Show)

(photo: Edith Valle for VICE)

Snip from today's radio program summary for The Madeleine Brand Show:

Thirty years in prison for tweeting? That's the maximum sentence two people from Veracruz, Mexico are facing after they created hysteria by tweeting rumors of a school under attack. The rumors proved false and now the two journalists face cyber-terrorism charges. Xeni Jardin, co-editor of the web site Boing Boing, joins us with more on this story. She also talks about new tech tools for tracking drug violence and a trend in Mexico of wearing very pointy boots.

Listen here, or dowload MP3.

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Mexico: “Twitter terrorists” face 30 years in prison for inciting panic

Gilberto Martinez Vera, a 48-year-old school teacher, and Maria de Jesus Bravo Pagola, a radio host, are accused of spreading fake reports of gunmen attacking schools in Mexico's south-eastern city of Veracruz. The pair faces up to 30 years in prison.

The resulting panic caused dozens of car crashes after parents rushed to save their children from schools across the city and jammed emergency telephone lines, which "totally collapsed" under the pressure.

Gerardo Buganza, the interior secretary for Veracruz state, compared the ensuing chaos to Orson Welles's spoof news broadcast War of the Worlds in 1938. The two are facing charges under terrorism laws.

Read more: Guardian UK.

Photo: veracruzenred.com.

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