Two people jailed in Mexico’s Veracruz state and charged with terrorism because of a series of alarmist tweets were freed Wednesday. Authorities dropped the charges, and the pair walked out of prison to cheering supporters.

“Thank God that freedom of expression won,” Maria de Jesus Bravo, a local journalist and radio commentator, said to the crowd. She and Gilberto Martinez Vera, a math teacher, spent nearly four weeks in jail after they sent out Twitter messages about a supposed attack on a primary school by drug gangs.

Read more at La Plaza

Video from earlier today:

Related: The Crime of Twitter

One of the top stories on twitter this week was that of two twitter users charged with “terrorism” in Veracruz, Mexico. Gilberto Martinez Vera and Maria de Jesus Bravo Pagola, seen above, face up to 30 years in prison for allegedly disseminating false rumors that lead to panic from parents who read on twitter that children were being abducted.

In cities throughout Mexico, average citizens are sharing information on shootouts and other dangers using hashtags. For many, they’ve become one of the primary functions of twitter.

Reporters Without Borders and various human and civil liberty organizations have called for the immediate release of Martinez and Bravo. Popular support on twitter has been spreading, with many using the image below as their profile pic.

More from the LA Times:

The government of Veracruz state in Mexico has jailed a man and woman on charges of terrorism and sabotage after they published rumors of an unconfirmed narco attack on a school on the social networking sites Twitter and Facebook.

The arrests are sparking outcry from human rights groups and puzzling analysts over the question of whether Mexico is equipped to handle freedom-of-speech cases as they relate to the spiraling violence of the country’s drug war. 

Twitter and Facebook have become indispensable sources of news on attacks in communities where local news outlets are under the thumb of drug lords or no longer report on violent incidents. At the same time, attacks against or near schools have been reported since the start of the new school year last week, sometimes causing confusion or panic among parents.

Read more at La Plaza via Daniel Hernandez 

Interview with Martinez and Bravo’s lawyer:

Listen: Rapero Clandestino ♪ Twitterterroristas

Read more from Animal Politico and Proceso

Photo: Gobernantes.Com

DJ Sandra Cruz on the air of La Voz de los Campesinos, XHFCE 105.5 FM, radio station from the eastern state of Veracruz, Mexico.

“This recognition is really for the indigenous and peasants of this region of our country. For the Nahuatl, Otomi and Tepehua people that have been building this radio service with their own voice.”

In her speech, Fajardo said the station began as a tiny shortwave radio project and that 45 years later The Peasants’ Voice was a fully licensed radio station that reached across the mountains of the Sierra Madre East and into the states of San Luis Potosi, Hidalgo, Puebla and Veracruz. She also said the current station reaches 400 communities or approximately 100,000 people.