Venezuela has begun the prosecution of  people for tweeting.

A relatively new technology, tweeting was used recently by Iranians who opposed the election fraud which occurred in that country; without tweeting, international information about the protests would have been lacking.

The two tweeters now facing charges allegedly speculated that a local bank was fiscally unsound, and that it would be wise to withdraw money from the bank.

They are charged with distributing false information. The Chavez government arrogates to itself the right to determine what is true and what is false; consequently there has been a substantial increase in prosecutions of dissidents on "false information" charges.

If convicted, the two twitterers face a minimum of NINE years in jail for expressing their opinions. Fifteen other persons are "under investigation" for tweeting.

 The case has already done much damage to Venezuela's democracy-on-life-support, since others who tweet fear to risk the open expression of their opinions about their society.