'Twitter terrorists' face 30 years after being charged in Mexico

School teacher and radio presenter accused of spreading false reports that gunmen were attacking schools in Veracruz

The panic generated by the Twitter reports was likened by Gerardo Buganza, the interior secretary for Veracruz state, to that caused by Orson Welles’s 1938 broadcast of War of the Worlds. Photograph: AP

A man and a woman are facing 30-year prison terms in Mexico for allegedly using Twitter to spread panic over a series of child kidnappings.

Gilberto Martinez Vera, 48, a private school teacher, and Maria de Jesus Bravo Pagola, a radio presenter, were accused of spreading false reports that gunmen were attacking schools in the south-eastern city of Veracruz.

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.

"There were 26 car accidents, or people left their cars in the middle of the streets to run and pick up their children, because they thought these things were occurring at their kids' schools," Buganza said.

The charges, which said that phone lines "totally collapsed because people were terrified" are the most serious charges to come from using Twitter to incite violence or chaos.

Last month in the UK, Jordan Blackshaw, 20, and Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan, 22, were both sentenced to four years in prison for inciting people to riot in the Manchester area. Despite setting up an event called Smash Down in Northwich Town on Facebook, only Blackshaw and the police, who were monitoring the page, turned up at a designated meeting spot.

The false reports in Mexico followed general unease over recent drug gang violence in the city. In one reported incident a gunman tossed a grenade near a tourist attraction, killing one tourist. Tensions were also raised after armed convoys of marines were drafted on to the streets in August.

Prosecutors allege that Vera then posted numerous messages on Twitter saying gunmen were kidnapping children from local schools. In one message he is said to have tweeted: "My sister-in-law just called me all upset, they just kidnapped five children from the school."

Other tweets included a story about six teenagers who were run over in one neighbourhood but although prosecutors acknowledge the incident happened, they said it did not involve any children.

Pagola, who also styled herself a "TwitTerrorist" on the Facebook website, is accused of spreading rumours of child kidnapping using the social network – a charge she denies. Lawyers for both defendants have argued that both were repeating rumours they had already seen on the internet.

Speaking through her lawyer, Pagola said: "How can they possibly do this to me, for re-tweeting a message? I mean, it's 140 characters. It's not logical."

Amnesty International accused officials of violating freedom of expression and instead blamed the panic on the city drug wars, in which 35,000 people are believed to have been killed in five years and which has seen people turning to social networks for information – both true and false.

Amnesty said: "The lack of safety creates an atmosphere of mistrust in which rumours that circulate on social networks are part of people's efforts to protect themselves, since there is very little trustworthy information."

Raul Trejo, a Mexican media expert, said that while the terrorism charge was unwarranted, the actions of Vera and Pagola were "a very incautious use of Twitter."