Freedom of Expression

Chile

1.                  During 2000, as was noted in that year’s Annual Report of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression, the Chilean State made a series of amendments to its laws governing free expression.  The result of these amendments was the enactment of the new Press Law which repealed, inter alia, the provisions for prior censorship and the crime of desacato, or contempt, set forth in Article 6(b) of the State Interior Security Law. Nevertheless, Chilean law still contains provisions that restrict freedom of expression, such as Article 263 of the Criminal Code, which defines the crime of disrespect of authority.

Judicial Actions

2.                  In November 2001, the Supreme Court lodged a complaint for disrespect of authority against the businessman Eduardo Yáñez.  On November 28, 2001, Mr. Yáñez appeared as a panelist on the Chilevisión television channel’s El Termómetro program. During the program he criticized the Chilean Supreme Court for the mistakes it had committed in two cases.  As a result of Yáñez’s statements, the Court filed suit under the disrespect provisions of Article 263 of the Criminal Code.  On January 15, 2002, Mr. Yáñez was arrested and charged.  The next day, Mr. Yáñez was able to make bail and was provisionally released, but the trial remained ongoing.  If convicted of the charges against him, he could be sentenced to up to five years in prison.[1] The Rapporteur’s office was quick to express its concern about these proceedings and recommended that the State of Chile repeal the provisions of Article 263 of its Criminal Code that establish the crime of disrespect of authority.[2]

3.                  The Inter-American Court has said that the protection of free expression must extend not only to favorable information and ideas, but also to those that “offend, shock, or disturb,” because “such are the demands of that pluralism, tolerance, and broadmindedness without which there is no democratic society.” Article 263 of Chile’s Criminal Code is in conflict with the jurisprudence of the inter-American system, and its use constitutes a clear violation of the right to freedom of expression.

Prior Censorship

4.                  On December 7, 2001, the state-owned company Metro S.A. refused to allow publicity posters for a human rights documentary called Estadio Chile—a reconstruction of what happened to the illegal detainees held in a Chilean sports stadium following the 1973 coup d’état—to be displayed on the platforms of the Santiago metro system.  Company officials said they would not put up the posters “because of their political content” and because they could be “counterproductive for metro users.” The information received indicates that the documentary was produced with funding from two government agencies, the National Arts Fund (Fondart) and the Development Corporation (Corfo), together with other contributions.  The documentary contains unpublished reports and pictures from the immediate aftermath of the September 1973 coup d’état in Chile, when the stadium was used as a detention center and torture facility.  In addition, the film was awarded the grand prize at the Santiago Documentary Festival in November 2001.[3]

Positive Actions

5.                  On October 19, 2001, the Chilean courts lifted the ban on distribution of journalist Alejandra Matus’s work El Libro Negro de la Justicia Chilena [“The Black Book of Chilean Justice”] after more than three years of censorship.  The decision was handed down by justice Rubén Ballesteros of the Santiago Appeals Court.  The decision was based on the repeal of Article 6.b of the State Interior Security Law in May 2001 and the enactment of the new Press Law.  The court’s ruling also dismissed the charges against Bartolo Ortiz, general manager of the publisher Editorial Planeta, and editor Carlos Orellana, who were being prosecuted alongside Ms. Matus for the crimes of defamation and libel.  In the same judgment, Ballesteros temporarily dismissed the bribery and contempt charges against Alejandra Matus.  He also ordered the release of the 1000-plus copies of the book that had been confiscated from Editorial Planeta, thereby allowing it to be distributed freely in Chile’s bookstores.[4]

6.                  During 2001, Chile’s Film Rating Council (CCC) lifted its bans on the following motion pictures: “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex,” by Woody Allen; “Bilbao” and “Las edades de Lulú,” by Juan José Bigas Luna; and “Pepi, Luci y Bom y otras chicas del montón,” by Pedro Almodóvar.  All these films had been banned by the CCC during the 1990s.[5]

7.                  On August 25, 2001, Chile amended its constitution to eliminate prior censorship, replacing it with a system for rating motion pictures.  Thus, on March 5, 2001, the President of the Republic presented Congress with a draft Law on the Rating of Cinematographic Works, intended to regulate the screening of films in Chile.

8.                  With respect to prior censorship, the Commission sent the Inter-American Court its comments on Chile’s report on its compliance with the judgment handed down by the Court on February 5, 2001, in the case of the film The Last Temptation of Christ. These comments analyzed whether the constitutional and legal amendments introduced by the Chilean State vis-à-vis the screening of motion pictures were in line with Article 13 of the American Convention.[6]

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