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Alerts - Chile

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Press release - WAN-IFRA/Latin America Press Freedom

Santiago de Chile, Chile, 27 April 2012

Chile

Court asked to protect TV journalist in attempt to seize riot video

The request was filed a few hours after men in civilian dress went to the home of the journalist who filmed the video, Canal 40 TV Aysén owner and director Samuel Chong Rivera, and threatened to arrest him if he did not hand it over.

Chile

Aysén protests and student rallies have worrying impact on journalists' safety

"At issue once again are the abuses by the security forces, especially the carabinero militarized police," said RSF.

Chile

Government scraps plan to force journalists to inform police

While a controversial section of the so-called "Hinzpeter Law" has been withdrawn, the bill is still in the hands of Congress.

Chile

Community media under attack

The Agro TV community television station suffered an attack that resulted in the collapse of its broadcast tower and the destruction of most of its equipment.

Chile

Three news websites hacked, newspaper publisher bombed

A bomb explosion outside the Copesa building on the night of 1 November shattered some windows but caused no injuries. The building houses "La Tercera", one of Chile's leading dailies.

Chile

More media freedom violations feared as protests continue

The concern is justified by the many cases of abuses committed by security force personnel at previous demonstrations, says RSF.

Chile

Bill would criminalise protests, turn journalists into police informers

The bill, which emerged following a wave of protests by students and others, would violate basic rights by criminalising the expression of opinions in public.

Chile

Mounting abuses and violence against journalists amid continuing student protests

Concerned about the explosive social climate, RSF urges the security forces to ensure control within their ranks and calls on the protesters to refrain from dangerous excesses.

Chile

Photographer arrested while covering protest against major hydroelectric project

Mapuexpress website staff told RSF that Marcela Rodríguez was mistreated by police.

Chile

Authorities shut down three community radio stations

Police officers shut down Radio Felicidad, Tentación and Radio 24, seizing the last two stations' broadcasting equipment.

Chile / Aruba

IAPA condemns mistreatment of press in Chile; expresses concern over attack on journalist in Aruba

IAPA has condemned the violence unleashed against the press during street demonstrations marking the anniversary of the coup that overthrew the government of Salvador Allende.

Chile

Journalist who covers Mapuche conflict arrested

Marcelo Garay Vergara is accused of failing to respond to a court summons in relation to a year-old report about a land dispute in the Mapuche territory.

Chile

Documentary maker assaulted by mayor's security guards

Jaime Díaz Lavanchy was verbally assaulted by the mayor of Ñuñoa and attacked by his security guards and supporters while filming a municipal council meeting.

Chile

Chile's community radio stations have key role in disaster response

AMARC applauds the rapid response of Chile's community radio stations to the recent earthquake and calls for legal measures to facilitate community broadcasting.

Chile

Court dismisses libel case filed by former lieutenant against journalist

Edwin Dimter Bianchi, a former army lieutenant, had pressed criminal charges against journalist Pascale Bonnefoy Miralles in 2006.

Chile

Abolish criminal defamation provisions, Human Rights Watch urges as freelancer goes on trial

Pascale Bonnefoy faces a prison term after writing an article naming a retired military officer as responsible for terrorising political prisoners during the Pinochet regime.

Chile

Police officer who assaulted photographer Víctor Salas identified; another photographer detained

Police sergeant Ivar Barría has been identified as the individual responsible for injuring photographer Víctor Salas in 2008. Another photographer was detained by police.

Chile

Community radio stations targeted in police operations

AMARC condemns a series of incidents targeting community radio stations.

Chile

Umbrales TV harassed by Telecommunications Secretariat and police

According to a 28 May 2009 release from Umbrales TV, Government Telecommunications Secretariat officials and police officers arrived at the station's offices "with evident intentions of entering the premises, with unknown consequences".

Chile

Supreme Court upholds defamation decision, hands down suspended sentence, fine and payment for damages

(CPJ/IFEX) - The following is a CPJ press release:

Chile

Journalist attacked and threatened after reporting on drug trafficking

(RSF/IFEX) - Javiera López, who has reported on local drug trafficking for the privately-owned station NorTV, was punched and kicked by thugs on her way home in the northern city of Iquique on 23 October 2008. She had previously received repeated death threats by telephone, but said she never took them seriously. The attack came soon after she did a report on the drug situation in Jorge Inostroza, an outlying area of the city.

Chile

Passage of Access to Information Law expected to "increase transparency, good governance, efficiency within public administration and citizen participation in public affairs," says ARTICLE 19

(ARTICLE 19/IFEX) - The following is an 18 August 2008 ARTICLE 19 press release:

Americas / Chile / International

Access to government information law passed, IAPA urges other countries to follow suit

(IAPA/IFEX) - The following is a 12 August 2008 IAPA press release:

Chile

Community radio station considers investigation attempt an intimidation tactic

(AMARC/IFEX) - On the evening of 22 July 2008, several individuals who identified themselves as officials from the Telecommunications Sub-Secretariat (Subsecretaría de Telecomunicaciones, SUBTEL) showed up at the Pedro Maniqueo Cultural Centre in the La Victoria area of Santiago, Chile. The cultural centre is home to the Radio Primero de Mayo community radio station. The supposed SUBTEL officials said they were there to take photographs of the radio station's equipment since "they knew that the station was broadcasting."

Chile

La Voz community radio station repeatedly searched by investigative police; government introduces bill to legalise such stations' status

(AMARC/IFEX) - On 4 July 2008, La Voz community radio station, located in the Estación Central neighbourhood of Chile's capital, Santiago, reported that its premises had been searched several times by investigative police since 30 June.

Chile

Police commanders refuse to identify officer who injured EFE photographer despite promise of disciplinary action

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders is not satisfied with the promises given by Chile's Carabinero police to punish some of its members for a physical attack on photographer Víctor Salas of the Spanish news agency EFE while he was covering a protest on 21 May 2008 in the western city of Valparaíso.

Chile

Concerned over detention of documentary filmmaker on hold-up charges, RSF asks, "Is the Mapuche issue a taboo subject?"

(RSF/IFEX) - The following is a 6 June 2008 RSF letter to Chilean President Michelle Bachelet:

Chile

Journalists protest judge's restriction on coverage of fraud case as "illegal and arbitrary"

(IPYS/IFEX) - On 25 May 2008, a judge of Santiago's Seventh Tribunal, Cecilia Pastene, forbade journalists from revealing the identity or broadcasting photographs of a lawyer accused of defrauding a client of 1.08 billion pesos pesos (approx. US$ 2,230,000). Her ruling also called for the removal of journalists from the courtroom where the charges against the lawyer were read.

Chile

EFE photographer wounded by police while covering protest in Valparaíso

(IPYS/IFEX) - On 21 May 2008, EFE photojournalist Víctor Salas was wounded when a police officer struck him with a baton. Salas was covering the protests being staged by several civil society organizations in the vicinity of the National Congress in the city of Valparaíso (120 km from Santiago), the country's legislative headquarters, where President Michelle Bachelet was presenting her annual report to the country. The protests were broken up by police on horseback and in vehicles armed with water cannons.

Chile

Two community radio journalists detained, assaulted by police while covering student demonstration

(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 24 April 2008.

Chile

Police impede journalist from covering environmental protest, briefly detain him in Coyhaique

(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 inciting people to disorder and was released two hours later.

Chile

Santiago-based television station receives call criticising coverage, warning of a bomb

(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.

Chile

Court excludes press from hearing of domestic violence case involving judge

(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.

Chile

Journalist doused by police water cannon while covering Mapuche demonstration in Santiago

(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.

Chile

AMARC welcomes proposed community radio bill but calls for some modifications to address significant deficiencies

(AMARC/IFEX) - The following is an abridged version of a 2 November 2007 AMARC press release:

Chile

Chilevisión journalists sentenced for using hidden cameras

(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 three-month prison sentence.

Chile

Supreme Court rescinds controversial restrictions on press reporting

(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.

Chile

Supreme Court decision to limit media's access to courtrooms condemned as unconstitutional

(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.

Chile

Argentine and Spanish journalists assaulted by Pinochet supporters; President Bachelet condemns late dictator's supporters' attacks on press

(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 face and another one snatched away her microphone in order to insult the Spaniards, shouting slogans against Judge Baltazar Garzón, who gave the order to arrest the dictator in London in 1998. The policemen who were protecting the military headquarters did not stop the assault.

Chile

Police look on while Pinochet supporters continue assaults on journalists in Santiago

(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.

Chile

RSF pays tribute to 68 media workers murdered or disappeared under Pinochet dictatorship

(RSF/IFEX) - The following is an 11 December 2006 RSF press release:

Chile

Pinochet sympathizers assault Chilevisión and Canal 7 television station journalists

(IPYS/IFEX) - On 10 December 2006, a group of supporters of the late former dictator Augusto Pinochet reacted violently against journalists who were covering the details of the retired general's death. Thousands of militants who were stationed outside Santiago de Chile's Military Hospital, where the former dictator had died, threw coins and bottles at the journalists.

Chile

Judge forbids television cameraman to tape public hearing

(IPYS/IFEX) - On 27 July 2006, Arica's supervisory judge (juez de garantía), Francisco Vargas Vera, forbade Mega TV channel cameraman, Julio Urquhart, to tape the public hearing he was presiding over, in spite of there being other people taping the proceedings who were not journalists. The cameraman recorded the moment in which the judge ordered him, as a journalist, to stop taping and warned that as long as he was a judge, the journalist would be forbidden to record any of his hearings. Urquhart told IPYS that he was the only television cameraman in the court at the time and that he was recording images of the judge for a report. The event took place in Arica, northern Chile.

Chile

Journalists injured, detained during student strike

(CPJ/IFEX) - The following is a 31 May 2006 CPJ press release:

Chile

Photographers assaulted during workers' march

(IPYS/IFEX) - On 1 May 2006, Associated Press photographer Santiago Llanquín and Danny Alveal, a photographer for the newspaper "Las Últimas Noticias", were wounded by persons while they were covering a march organized by the workers' union Central Unitaria de Trabajadores (CUT) to commemorate May Day in Santiago de Chile. According to witnesses, the aggression resulted from the fact that reporters and cameramen were present to record the violence and looting that broke out during the demonstration. The attackers also destroyed the media vehicles of four TV channels and stole Mega television channel's equipment.

Chile

Television crew assaulted outside private party

(RSF/IFEX) - RSF condemns the 26 November 2005 attack on a Chilevisión television crew, that had gone to a private party in Santiago hoping to film a celebrity participant. The reporters were beaten by some of the guests outside the house.

Chile

Neo-Nazis paint graffiti and swastikas outside of national television station's studios

(RSF/IFEX) - RSF has condemned the threatening graffiti and swastikas that were spray painted on the outside of the studios of TVN, in the central city of Valparaíso. The incident occurred on 15 July 2005, after the national television station broadcast a programme about Chile's neo-Nazi groups.

Chile

Director of indigenous people's magazine jailed a second time for same case

(RSF/IFEX) - RSF has expressed concern for Pedro Cayuqueo Millaqueo, director of the Mapuche magazine "Azkintuwe", who has been imprisoned in Traiguén, southern Chile, since 2 June 2005. This is the second time that the journalist has been incarcerated over the same charges. Cayuqueo is also an activist who has fought for the return of the Mapuche people's ancestral lands.

Chile

IAPA delivers recommendations on strengthening press freedom to Senate president and calls for elimination of insult laws

(IAPA/IFEX) - The following is a 13 June 2005 IAPA press release:

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