By: Mark Fitzgerald A Story From Chile and News From Elsewhere
CHICAGO - The first call to Alejandra Matus came from her publisher: Police
had arrived at his office with an order to confiscate all copies of her book
documenting judicial corruption, "El Libro Negro de la Justicia Chilena" ("The
Black Book of Chilean Justice"). The next call was from her brother: Get out of
the country - now. A warrant for her arrest was being prepared.
"I argued with him a little because I wanted to stay there and defend the book,"
Matus recalled in an interview last week. "But he made me see that that was
unreasonable." She fled Chile that very day, April 13, 1999.
Wait a minute - "fled" Chile? Hasn't Chile been a free and democratic
nation since Gen. Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship ended more than a decade ago?
"After democracy," Matus said, "we recovered some things and not others. One of
the things we didn't recover is freedom of expression."
When the United States granted Matus political asylum in February 2000 -
allowing her to get a job as a reporter for El Nuevo Herald, The Miami
Herald's Spanish-language sibling - it shone a light on the dirty
little secret of Chile's anti-press laws. Desacato or "insult" laws in 18 Latin
American nations make publishing even truthful information a crime if it offends
certain officials and institutions. But Chile's insult laws are unusually
sweeping, subjecting journalists to accusations of violating "national security"
at the whim of an offended official. "Judges automatically assume that if what
the authority [figure] considers offensive was actually said, then the person
that said it is guilty," Matus said.
Chile's insult laws aren't just gathering dust on the bookshelf, either. Last
year, reporter Jose Ale was sentenced to a 541-day prison term (that was
suspended). He was later pardoned by President Ricardo Lagos.
The case against Matus is so weak that its prosecutor last month asked a judge
to dismiss it. Instead, the judge, using a twist in Chilean law, "temporarily"
closed the case - but kept the arrest warrant open.
Matus is on leave from El Nuevo Herald while she writes a follow-up book
funded by a Ford Foundation grant. As a Herald reporter, she experienced
U.S.-style political arrogance when Miami Mayor Joe Carollo accused her of
writing like a Cuban propagandist. But in Miami, unlike Chile, offending the
mayor is not a crime.
Pan-Am Highway: Briefs
Government mobs? International organizations expressed concern that a violent
demonstration Feb. 20 in front of the offices of the Guatemalan dailies
elPeri?dico and Nuestro Diario appeared to be the work of the
ruling Guatemala Front political party and the government's minister of
communications, Louis Rabbe. Throwing rocks and burning newspapers and an effigy
of elPeri?dico Publisher Jose Ruben Zamora, the demonstrators protested
the papers' reporting of Rabbe's alleged corruption. The Committee to Protect
Journalists reported camera crews from pro-government TV stations run by Rabbe's
brother-in-law Angel Gonzilez showed up at the offices 20 minutes before the
mob. ...
Nicaragua President Arnoldo Alemin's partial veto of legislation forcing
journalists to join a colegio or guild is as bad as the original bill, Inter
American Press Association President Danilo Arbilla, editor of the Montevideo,
Uruguay, weekly B?squeda, wrote in a Feb. 9 protest letter. Alemin's
substitute legislation provides for a six-month jail sentence for practicing
journalism without a credential from the colegio. ...
The small Brazilian daily O Diario is in danger of closing because of a
$112,000 judgment - a record-breaking damage award against a Brazilian
newspaper - in a lawsuit brought by a prosecutor and a judge. Buenos Aires,
Argentina-based Asociacion para la Defensa del Periodismo Independiente says the
paper, which has just eight employees, was hit with the judgment, even though it
documented the truth of its reporting on the two officials. ...
Shouting "down with capitalism and journalists," Venezuela President Hugo Chavez
claimed in a speech all radio and TV stations were forced to broadcast that a
"media conspiracy" led by four or five publishers and broadcasters was trying to
overthrow his left-wing government. Chavez encouraged Venezuelans to "shout
instructions" at any reporters they encounter.
Mark Fitzgerald (mfitzgerald@editorandpublisher.com) is editor at large for E&P.
Copyright 2001, Editor & Publisher.
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