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Alert

WPFC calls on minister to give "extreme urgency" status to bill eliminating insult laws

(WPFC/IFEX) - The following is a 26 August 2003 WPFC letter to Minister of Government Francisco Vidal Salinas:

26 August 2003

His Excellency Francisco Vidal Salinas
Minister of Government
Government of Chile
La Moneda Palace
Santiago, Chile

Dear Minister Vidal:

As executive director of the World Press Freedom Committee, which includes 44 journalistic groups on six continents, I write to urge you to fulfill your promise, as soon as possible, to bestow "extreme urgency" consideration on Bill 212-347, eliminating insult laws from Chilean legislation.

Today, August 26, 2003, is the first anniversary of President Ricardo Lagos' submission of such a bill to Congress in a show of continental leadership. The bill was then assigned "urgent" consideration by President Lagos, meaning Congress had 30 days to pass it.

The bill, nevertheless, has encountered numerous legislative obstacles. In these 12 months the bill has barely been approved by the corresponding committee, which continues its resistance to send it to the full floor of the House of Deputies for a speedy passage.

Bill 212-347 provides for the elimination or reform of the seven insult laws still in the Chilean books, articles 263, 264 and 265 of the Criminal Code, and articles 276, 284, 416 y 417 of the Code of Military Justice. These obsolete laws -which date from the Roman Empire and were embraced by past Latin American autocratic governments- blemish Chile's democratic credentials by shielding some 350 select public officials from the scrutiny of the remaining 15 million Chileans.

"There is no doubt," as President Lagos correctly stated in his Bill's introduction, "that the existence of these laws in Chile has degraded into an unjustified privilege established to favor certain individuals, which contradicts Article One of the 1980 Political Constitution, which consecrates the equality before the law of any person's dignity and rights."

Likewise, these seven articles constitute a challenge to the Inter-American justice system, which, through the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, declared insult laws "contradictory" to Article 13 of the American Convention on Human Rights. But in the period since the commission's 1994 declaration, only four Latin American countries have completely eliminated their insult laws: Argentina, Paraguay, Costa Rica and Peru.

Minister Vidal, this is a magnificent opportunity for Chile to retake its continental leadership position and once and for all abolish these pernicious laws which undermine democracy's foundations and the basic values of the Chilean Constitution.

We urge you to act immediately to ensure that Bill 212-347 is given the designation necessary to speed its early passage.

Respectfully,

Marilyn J. Greene

Marilyn Greene
Executive Director
World Press Freedom Committee

cc:
President Ricardo Lagos Escobar
Assistant Secretary Roger F. Noriega
Ambassador Andres Bianchi Larre
Ambassador William R. Brownfield
Ambassador Esteban Tomic
Guillermo Ceroni Fuentes
Members of the CLJC
Undersecretary Jaime Arellano Quintana
Chief Justice Mario Garrido Montt
Miguel Gonzalez Pino
Adriana Munoz D'Albora
Andres Zaldivar Larrain
Carlos Cantero Ojeda
Juan Pablo Letelier Morel
Victor Barrueto
Arturo Longton Guerrero
Juan Pablo Illanes
Cristian Bofill Rodriguez
Allejandro Guiller
Maria Claudia del Solar Zamora
Guillermo Torres Gaona
Juan Pablo Olmedo
Ciro Colombara