Chile

Report to the Midyear Meeting 2008: Chile

(AMARC/IFEX) – Two correspondents of the Santiago-based Radio Primero de Mayo radio station were arbitrarily detained by members of the Carabineros, a uniformed armed national police and gendarme body, while they were covering a demonstration by high-school students expressing their demands to the government of President Michelle Bachelet. The incident occurred on the morning of […]

(IPYS/IFEX) – On 17 April 2008, a group of police officers detained journalist Patricio Segura outside the Public Works Ministerial Regional Secretariat (SEREMI), in the town of Coyhaique, southern Chile, when he was covering a protest against the minister of the interior, Edmundo Pérez Yoma, who was visiting the region. The reporter was accused of […]

Annual Report 2008: Chile

World Report 2008: Chile

(IPYS/IFEX) – On 19 March 2008, security staff of the television channel Chilevisión received an anonymous telephone call warning them that a bomb had been placed on the station’s premises. A special operations unit of the national police was mobilised in response to the call; staff was evacuated and the street was closed off where […]

Freedom of the Press 2007: Chile

(IPYS/IFEX) – On 25 January 2008, Judge Fernando Valderrama forbade the press access to the rooms in which hearings were to be held in a family violence case. The defendant in the case, Ricardo Blanco, is an appeals court judge for the district of San Miguel in Santiago, the capital. The criminal proceedings code allows, […]

(IPYS/IFEX) – On 23 January 2008, free lance reporter Jorge Garretón came under attack while covering a demonstration of the Mapuche indigenous people in the centre of Santiago. A group of carabineros (Chilean state police) directed the strong jet of a water cannon in the journalist’s direction. The liquid caused skin irritation and vomiting. The […]

(AMARC/IFEX) – The following is an abridged version of a 2 November 2007 AMARC press release: AMARC welcomes proposed community radio bill but calls for some modifications AMARC’s Latin American and Caribbean office (Asociación Mundial de Radios Comunitarias para América Latina y el Caribe, AMARC-ALC) welcomes the Chilean government’s recent attempt to finally recognise community […]

(IPYS/IFEX) – In a unanimous ruling made known on 9 August 2007, the Second Bench of the Supreme Court confirmed the conviction of three journalists of the Chilevisión (CHV) television station for the use of hidden cameras. Press editor Patricio Caldichoury Ríos, journalist Fernando Reyes Amín and producer Raúl Poblete Barrios each received a suspended […]

(RSF/IFEX) – The Supreme Court has rescinded the decree it issued on 26 March 2007 restricting the movements of journalists within courthouses and their ability to conduct interviews while there. The decree, which the Supreme Court justices approved unanimously, prompted such an outcry in the Chilean press that the court was forced to announce on […]

(RSF/IFEX) – RSF is dismayed over a Supreme Court ruling made on 26 March 2007, supposedly aimed at regulating the work of journalists accredited to work in the country’s courts. RSF said it shared the view of the Chilean press that the decision, which cannot be appealed unless the matter is referred to the constitutional […]

(IPYS/IFEX) – On the evening of 11 December 2006, a group of former dictator Augusto Pinochet’s supporters insulted and threw objects at Televisión Española’s team of journalists, led by reporter María José Ramundo, while they covered the general’s funeral at the Military School in Santiago de Chile. One of the supporters hit Ramundo in the […]

(RSF/IFEX) – RSF condemns the violence against Chilean and foreign journalists by supporters of the former dictator Augusto Pinochet, who died on 10 December 2006, in the days before and on the day of his funeral in Santiago. “These assaults demonstrate, if ever proof was needed, the utter contempt for freedom of these heirs of […]

(RSF/IFEX) – The following is an 11 December 2006 RSF press release: A TRIBUTE TO 68 MEDIA WORKERS MURDERED OR DISAPPEARED UNDER GEN. PINOCHET Reporters Without Borders paid homage today to the 68 media personnel – including editors, reporters, photographers, cameramen and printing press workers – who were among the 4,000 people murdered or disappeared […]