17 July 2001
JOURNALIST RETURNS HOME; FILM SCREENING SUSPENDED; JUDGE WANTS TO QUESTION KISSINGER ABOUT "MISSING" JOURNALIST
Journalist Alejandra Matus returned to Chile on 14 July 2001 after more than two years in exile, reports Legal Training for Action (FORJA). "Today is an important day for journalists and for press freedom in Chile," the journalist stated after her arrival.
Matus had been living in the United States since a judge ordered her detention and banned her book "El Libro Negro de la Justicia Chilena" (The Black Book of Chilean Justice) in April 1999.
Her return was made possible when the Santiago Appeals Court annulled the arrest order against her on 6 July.
However, Matus's book is still prohibited despite the recent repeal of the article of the State Security Law under which the ban was invoked.
Matus will stay in Chile for only seven days since the necessary conditions for her definitive return, including an end to the prosecution against her and lifting of the ban on her book, have not yet been established. [Updates
IFEX "Communique" #10-19, #10-1 and #9-13.]
Meanwhile, organisers of the launch of a book about film censorship in Chile have censored themselves by suspending screening of the film "The Last Temptation of Christ", reports the Institute for Press and Society (IPYS). The organisers feared that showing the film would lead to closure of the cinema and arrests of the audience and organisers.
The screening was to have followed the launch of "La Pantalla Prohibida" (The Forbidden Screen) by Marco Antonio de la Parra and Daniel Olave. Martin Scorsese's "The Last Temptation of Christ" has been banned in Chile since January 1997, when the Supreme Court ruled that the figure of Christ had been "distorted and humiliated and his honour damaged."
In February 2001, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights condemned Chile for violating the American Convention on Human Rights and gave the government six months to reverse the prohibition.
In other news, Chilean judge Juan Guzman is seeking to question former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger over the fate of a US journalist who disappeared in Chile during the 1973 coup, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reports.
The story of the journalist, Charles Horman, was the subject of the 1982 Hollywood film "Missing". Horman was investigating links between the Central Intelligence Agency and the Pinochet coup at the time of his disappearance.
On 4 July, Judge Guzman sent a list of written questions he wishes to put to Kissinger via Chile's Supreme Court, which must decide whether to forward them to the US State Department.
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