Zimbabwe Releases American Charged With Insulting Mugabe<br />a platforms as well as running some Twitter accounts." Prosecutors said<br />that she had access to the anonymous account that had posted the offensive tweet, which included a photograph of Mr. Mugabe, 93, with an illustration of a catheter, but they presented little evidence to support their accusation that she was responsible. that systematically sought to incite political unrest through the expansion, development and use of a sophisticated network of social medi<br />Supported by By Jeffrey Moyo and Norimitsu Onishi HARARE, Zimbabwe — An American woman who was arrested in Zimbabwe in November over a tweet mocking<br />Robert Mugabe, weeks before he was forced out as president, was set free on Thursday after state prosecutors failed to prepare their case.<br />The Zimbabwean government, which had established a cybersecurity ministry a month before her arrest, began cracking down on social media in 2016 after activists using WhatsApp<br />and Facebook organized street protests against Mr. Mugabe’s government.<br />Her arrest, which came less than two weeks before Mr. Mugabe’s resignation, had raised fears<br />that the Zimbabwean government was stepping up efforts to control social media before national elections scheduled for mid-2018.<br />The government, could revive its effort to put Ms. O’Donovan on trial by presenting new evidence,<br />but Linda Gatsikwa, a prosecutor, gave no indication of what the state would do.
