I. SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Since Human Rights Watch's report The Limits of Tolerance: Freedom of Expression and the Public Debate in Chile was published in November 1998, Chile has publicly recognized the need to make extensive legal reforms to protect freedom of expression. Progress toward these reforms, however, has been dismally slow. Indeed, most of the reforms described in our 1998 report as pending in Congress still await enactment more than two years later.

The most glaring example of the sluggish pace of reform is the bill to regulate the press and to protect the rights of journalists (hereinafter referred to as the "Press Law"), which has languished in Congress for a full eight years. The bill was expected to finally become law during the first year of the government of President Ricardo Lagos, who entered office in March 2000, but such hopes were dashed when legislators failed to agree on the package before Congress began its summer recess in February 2001.

The draft Press Law includes long-overdue provisions to eliminate the crime of contempt of authority (desacato) from the State Security Law, and to strip judges of their powers under that law to confiscate publications. It was not until April 1999 (nine years after Chile returned to democracy) that the administration of Lagos' predecessor, Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle, first announced legislation to repeal these sections of the State Security Law, which clearly violate binding international norms on freedom of expression. Since then, twelve journalists, editors, politicians, and ordinary citizens have been convicted, charged, or face trial under the State Security Law for exercising their right to freedom of expression.

A consensus has emerged, albeit painfully slowly, on the need to do away with these antiquated provisions, which make criticism of public authorities a public order offense subject to especially severe penalties. While this is an advance on earlier years, the political will needed to repeal them has been lacking. Moreover, even assuming that these undemocratic laws are soon rescinded, the principle on which they depend - that authorities of state deserve special protection against "unreasonable" criticism - has still not been seriously challenged by Chile's lawmakers. Indeed, during the congressional debate on the Press Law, a government effort to repeal the contempt of authority provisions of the ordinary criminal code (which are very similar in wording to the questioned articles of the State Security Law) was decisively rejected. Some members of Congress, faced with the prospect of these provisions' repeal, even sought to introduce a measure that would make criticism of government authorities an especially grave form of libel.

Proposals like this run counter to international freedom of expression principles now well established in democracies across the world. Indeed, international human rights law holds that the limits of permissible criticism must be wider with regard to a person in public office than with regard to a private citizen, because of the overriding need in a democracy for public authorities to be held accountable to public opinion. Tolerance of criticism, even ill-founded and unfair criticism, is one of the obligations of public office in a democracy. Chile's politicians have shown little sign that they appreciate the overriding importance of this principle. To implement it, all crimes of contempt of authority and criminal defamation protecting government officials must be eliminated from the legal system. Until that is achieved, the repeal of sections of the State Security Law will only be a partial, even if important, advance.

Other reforms in the proposed Press Law address additional concerns that Human Rights Watch highlighted in its 1998 report. They include an end to judicial bans on press coverage of criminal investigations, known in Chile as reporting bans (prohibición de informar). They also include the transfer to civilian courts of all cases of journalists prosecuted for offenses connected with their trade (some crimes of opinion, such as "sedition," are still dealt with by military courts). Under the new law, fines would replace prison sentences for journalists convicted of criminal libel. Journalists (but only those with an officially recognized professional title) would enjoy an exemption from the obligation to reveal the identity of their sources to the courts. All of these long-overdue reforms still await approval in Congress.

In other areas relating to free expression, as well, progress has been painfully slow. Congress has moved at snail's pace to push through a constitutional reform, first introduced by the Frei government in 1997, to eliminate film censorship. While the Chilean government does not currently censor films, it still enjoys the legal authority to do so, authority that is expressly granted it in the Chilean constitution. Representatives of the armed forces and Carabineros, the uniformed police, still sit on the official film censorship board. The board may review any video that enters the country in a traveler's suitcase or a mail-order package, and prevent its owner from seeing it, even in private. Films prohibited in earlier years, including many banned for ideological reasons under the military government (1973-1990), still may not be seen in cinemas or on broadcast television or video. The persistence of film censorship in Chile was recently condemned by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in a case challenging the judicially-imposed ban on Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ. Yet the film still cannot be seen legally in Chile.

Access to official information is the only free expression right that has been strengthened under Chile's center-left government coalition, the Concertation of Parties for Democracy, which has ruled without interruption for a decade. A Bill on Honesty in Public Administration, establishing that "the acts of the organs of public administration are public, apart from the exceptions established by law," was promulgated in December 1999. The bill amends the law that regulates public administration and local government in Chile, establishing that the public has a right of access to official documents except in certain defined circumstances, and providing a mechanism of redress if requests for information are ignored or arbitrarily denied. Some key cases in 2000, however, reveal that public authorities are still reluctant to concede ordinary members of the public access to such information.

Thus, although the restrictions of earlier years have been somewhat relaxed, Chile's balance sheet on freedom of expression is still deeply in debit, and will remain so even if the Press Law is approved in its present form. A great deal remains to be done to bring Chile's laws into line with international standards. As noted, even if it is eventually expunged from the State Security Law, the crime of contempt of authority will live on in the Criminal Code, and in military laws. Judges will still have powers to remove publications of public interest from circulation to protect the honor of litigants. Privacy laws currently in force unnecessarily limit the press in covering matters of public interest. Journalists remain at risk of criminal prosecution and imprisonment for violating secrecy rules. In sum, Chile has failed to embrace the tolerance of divergent opinion that a vibrant democracy requires.

In April 1999, the Frei government promised, with cross-party support, to repeal the law and it backed legislation to do so. Yet it is doubtful whether the growing consensus in support of reform of the State Security Law amountedto a genuine acceptance of the principle that government officials and legislators should lose their special protection against unfair or offensive criticism. The Chilean Congress has mauled every proposal placed before it, demonstrating an obvious reluctance to do away with the special provisions that protect members of Congress as well as executive-branch officials.

In the meantime, prosecutions under the law have continued unabated. Since the publication of our 1998 report, twelve individuals have been convicted, charged, or are currently facing accusations of contempt of authority under the State Security Law. As this report went to press in February, Gen. Hernán Gabrielli Rojas, then acting chief of the air force (in replacement of Gen. Patricio Ríos, who was recovering from heart surgery), opened a state security lawsuit against three former political prisoners who alleged that Gabrielli participated in their torture at the Cerro Moreno airbase in Antofagasta, just after the September 1973 military coup. While government officials said they deplored Gabrielli's resort to the law, they failed to persuade him to file an ordinary libel suit instead. The armed forces, whose commanders-in-chief had themselves recently been accused in court of obstructing justice by withholding information on the "disappeared," backed Gabrielli's decision. The case demonstrated, once again, the proclivity of senior military officers to utilize repressive national security legislation to penalize or deter their critics or those who question their records.

Chile is unique in Latin America in considering insulting expressions about those who hold office or power to be a crime against public order and state security. Such offenses are indeed subject to more drastic punishment than ordinary libel. The State Security Law, promulgated in 1958, goes well beyond the legitimate prohibition of actions that might threaten public order or the stability of democratic institutions, and also punishes criticism considered contemptuous or defamatory by public officials. In practice, this means that all criticism of those in authority must remain within certain undefined limits. While the right to criticize is accepted, the principle underlying the law is that, to merit legal protection, criticism must be responsible and respectful. The use of criminal sanctions to enforce such deference to authority unnecessarily restricts freedom of expression, thereby stifling public debate.

The most authoritative standards by which to assess laws that restrict freedom of expression in Chile are set out in the human rights treaties Chile has ratified. Particular relevant are Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Article 13 of the American Convention on Human Rights, as well as the jurisprudence of the bodies that monitor the implementation of these standards.

Although not legally binding on Chile, the standards interpreted by the European Court of Human Rights, which has developed a particularly rich jurisprudence on freedom of expression issues, are also pertinent. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which monitors observance of the American Convention, has often cited decisions of the European Court as legal precedent. In landmark cases like Lingens v. Austria (1986) and Castells v. Spain (1992), the court has consistently held that government officials and politicians should expect to tolerate a greater degree of criticism than ordinary citizens, given that they have voluntarily entered the public arena. In the Castells case, the court held that such tolerance must extend not only to ideas that are "favorably received," but also to those that "offend, shock or disturb." Although the accountability of government in a democratic system is tied to the rule of law and the separation of powers, its deeper roots lie in a vigorous and uninhibited public debate. As the court explained in Castells: "In a democratic system the actions or omissions of the Government must be subject to the close scrutiny not only of the legislative and judicial authorities but also of the press and public opinion."

In his 1998 report, Santiago Cantón, the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression of the Organization of American States (OAS), called on all OAS member states to repeal their contempt of authority laws. He quoted extensively from the 1994 Report of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on "Desacato" Laws. This report, which cites the European jurisprudence at length, found that laws that penalize offensive expressions directed at public officials, generally known as "desacato laws," violate Article 13 of the American Convention on Human Rights. Principle 11 of the Inter-American Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression, approved by thecommission at its 108th regular session, codifies the same finding.

Nonetheless, the Chilean Supreme Court has failed to find the country's State Security Law to be inconsistent with Chile's international obligations to protect freedom of expression. These obligations are recognized in the second paragraph of Article 5 of the Chilean Constitution, which provides that "the exercise of sovereignty recognizes as a limit respect for the essential rights that emanate from human nature. It is a duty of the organs of State to respect and promote these rights, guaranteed by this Constitution, as well as by the international treaties ratified by Chile and in force."1 The law clearly contravenes the American Convention on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Yet in April 2000, on hearing a legal challenge to the law, the court refused to grant a writ finding that the law was unconstitutional.

Criticism of the State Security Law in political circles was muted during most of the 1990s. During the early part of the decade, the great majority of prosecutions were brought by military officials, including Gen. Augusto Pinochet (then still its commander-in-chief), and were leveled against human rights critics. (One such prosecution is still pending and is described later in this report.) While no executive branch officials have initiated prosecutions since the return of democracy, members of the judiciary have done so on more than one occasion, and Congress itself prosecuted a former Pinochet minister (Francisco Javier Cuadra) in defense of the honor of the institution. These cases make it difficult to argue that this type of contempt allegation is merely a remnant of authoritarian attitudes typical of military rule. The Cuadra case, in particular, was revealing in that the accusation stemmed from the legislature, and that the freedom of expression issues it raised were never subject to a serious debate at the time. There was, in fact, a "blind spot" in relation to the law and its human rights implications. Proposals for the law's repeal were not adopted by the government until 1999, even though the Press Law, designed to protect the rights of journalist, had been in Congress since 1993.

The watershed came in April 1999, when former Chief Justice Servando Jordán ordered the arrest of journalist Alejandra Matus for the allegedly libelous content of her book, The Black Book of Chilean Justice. Justice Jordán, who is still a member of the Supreme Court, has been responsible for no fewer than seven such prosecutions since 1998. On the day of book's publication, he had all the copies in print impounded under Article 16 of the State Security Law, which allows judges "in serious cases" to order the confiscation of the entire stock of a publication. The actions of the former Chief Justice, who had recently escaped impeachment on corruption charges, created a political storm. A group of parliamentarians from the government coalition promptly tabled a motion in the Chamber of Deputies to amend Article 6(b) and Article 16 of the law to abolish the crime of contempt of authority and strip judges of the power to impound all copies of books and magazines.

More prosecutions followed, however, before any progress was reported in the parliamentary debate on the proposed reforms. In June 1999, two senior representatives of Matus' publishers, Planeta, were detained overnight and charged with contempt of authority, under a provision of the law which establishes a chain of criminal responsibility extending to editors, publishers, and eventually even to the printers of an offending document. In February 2000, journalist José Ale received a 541-day suspended prison sentence for an article about Jordán's career in the judiciary. His conviction reversed several lower court decisions absolving him of any crime.

During the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression's visit to Chile in June 1999, which took place soon after the arrest of the Planeta representatives, government officials and members of the Chamber of Deputies made a public commitment to remove contempt of authority laws from the statute books in Chile. In October 2000, the Inter-American Press Association, meeting for its 56th General Assembly in Santiago, noted with concern that, after fifteen months, Chile had still failed to implement these promises. Since then, government representatives have told Human Rights Watch repeatedly that they expected that the law would pass within a matter of months. But still therehas been no progress.

After an initial consensus was reached regarding the need to amend Article 6(b), the contempt of authority provision, as well as other articles of the State Security Law, the government decided to incorporate the contempt of authority reforms into the proposed Press Law package. This appears, in retrospect, to have been a serious tactical error. The draft Press Law has undergone repeated revisions, none of which have yet succeeded in overcoming diverse objections to it made by the newspaper owners' lobby, the journalists union, advertisers, and other interest groups, as well as by political parties. In May 2000, the Chamber of Deputies voted overwhelmingly against a compromise draft hammered out by a joint commission of both congressional chambers, which the Lagos government had expected to pass without difficulty. In the seven months of the year that remained, the government was unable to push forward the contempt of authority reforms, which as of February 2001 still awaited Congress' final approval of the Press Law.

As noted above, members of Congress failed to accept government proposals to repeal Articles 263, 264, and 265 of the Criminal Code, which cover defamation and libel of public officials using language very similar to that of Article 6(b). All references to eliminating the crime of contempt of authority from the Criminal Code have now been dropped from the proposed Press Law. Thus, even if Chile repeals the contempt of authority provisions currently set out in Article 6(b), the Criminal Code provisions will remain in force. These provisions have rarely been invoked over the past decade, but it is reasonable to suppose that their quiescence resulted from the fact that the State Security Law was considered a more sure and rapid means of obtaining a conviction or deterring a critic. Once that law is no longer available to them, the Criminal Code provisions will still give public officials and legislators more protection from libel than ordinary citizens enjoy. Common sense suggests that these provisions may be invoked as the State Security Law was invoked previously, and that their mere existence will have a "chilling effect" on freedom of expression. Thus, the reforms now under debate in Congress will not fully meet the commitment made to the OAS by Chilean legislators in 1999. To bring its legislation into line with international standards, Chile must repeal these provisions as well.

In addition, insult, contempt of authority, and sedition continue to be offenses in the Code of Military Justice. Whereas the first offense was removed from the jurisdiction of military courts by the government of Patricio Aylwin in 1992, "sedition" continues to be tried by military courts regardless of whether the offender is a member of the armed forces or a civilian. The Press Law would strip military courts of jurisdiction over cases of this type (the last such case was in 1996). Even so, reform of contempt of authority provisions in military laws, part of a long overdue overhaul of the Code of Military Justice, is another task still pending after a decade of democratic rule.

The one exception to the American Convention's general prohibition of prior censorship is to permit the censorship of "public entertainments," but only "for the sole purpose of regulating access to them for the moral protection of childhood and adolescence." Beyond restricting minors' access to the cinema, any other regulation of cinematographic content must be carried out via the imposition of subsequent liability. This holds true even in those few areas - such as child pornography, "snuff movies," or actual incitement to ethnic or racial violence - in which certain restrictions are legitimate. In other words, prevention of such material must be based on prosecutions and effective sanctions against those responsible, after the event, and on the deterrent effect of such sanctions, rather than on prior censorship. To adopt a general system of censorship to prevent the exhibition of such material is an unnecessary interference in freedom of expression.

As the country's modernization proceeds apace, the anomaly of film censorship has become ever more glaring. The board of film censors (Consejo de Calificación Cinematográfica, CCC) still includes officers of the armed forces and the police, as well as representatives of the judiciary, universities, schools, and the journalists' union. The CCC's powers extend to the prior vetting of all videos that enter the country, even those imported by individuals for their private use. The customs service has orders from the CCC to refer to it all videos, or films in other formats, found in travelers' luggage or in mail-order packages. These must be cleared by the board before they are returned to their owners, and items already prohibited by the board in earlier years are confiscated. Thus, whether or not the purchaser of a film by internet ever gets to view his acquisition is a game of chance that depends in large degree on the mood or work-load of customs inspectors. In September 2000, the Santiago Appeals Court admitted for consideration the first-ever appeal against the CCC lodged by a private citizen for violation of his privacy rights, as protected in Article 19(4) of the Constitution.

In April 1997, President Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle introduced a bill in Congress aimed at amending the Constitution to eliminate film censorship and restrict the CCC's powers to classify films by age-group suitability. The bill also introduced an extra clause into Article 19(12) of the Constitution, which included among the rights protected, "to create and spread the arts." After an initial debate in a Chamber of Deputies committee, the bill was forgotten for more than two years, until November 1999, when Frei, using executive privilege, gave it priority for "immediate discussion." The Chamber of Deputies rapidly approved the bill, but it still awaits ratification in the Senate, nearly four years after it was first introduced.

Members of Congress from the opposition benches as well as the governing coalition have introduced draft legislation to modify the composition of the CCC, aiming to remove the four armed forces representatives and create a more flexible classification system. The bills would also allow the CCC to revise existing classifications, which would enable television stations to transmit films banned during the military government without fear of a fine by the National Television Council (at present, cable operators have to replace hundreds of scheduled films every month to avoid fines). These bills, which are also pending in the Senate, are expected to be consolidated into a single reform. Although a principle motive for movie censorship under the military government was ideological, the main political concerns affecting the current reform bills center around on pornography and violence.

The Chilean legal norms that permit censorship are overlapping and confusing. For example, Article 16 of the State Security Law (due to be repealed if the pending Press Law clears Congress) says that courts may order the immediate confiscation of "any edition" in which a grave violation of the law has been committed. Article 30 of the law instructs judges to impound offending magazines, books or records, without reference to the number of copies the court may seize. On the other hand, Article 41 of the Law on Abuses of Publicity of 1967 (also due to be repealed in the new Press Law) states explicitly that judges investigating offenses may impound only four copies unless the offense involves public morals (pornography), national security, or incitement to criminal activity, in which case the entire stock may be impounded. To these norms must be added those of the Code of Criminal Procedures, whose Article 7 requires judges to "give protection to the prejudiced parties, deposit the evidence of the crime that might disappear, and gather and place in custody whatever may lead to the crime being proven and to the identification of the felons," and to secure the "instruments, arms and objects of any sort that appear to have been used or intended to be used to commit the crime." These norms were cited to justify a court decision in 1992 to impound all the copiesof Los Secretos de Fra Fra, journalist María Irene Soto's expose of alleged business malpractice by a former presidential candidate.

Yet another mechanism that litigants may deploy to put a book or a film out of circulation (used, for example in the Last Temptation case) is a writ for the protection of the constitutional right to honor or privacy. The last instance known to Human Rights Watch in which such a recurso de protección (protection writ) led to prior censorship was in July 1998, when the Santiago Appeals Court granted an injunction against the magazine Caras, preventing it from publishing a report about a plane crash.

The notoriety of cases like this may have caught the attention of Chile's judges, encouraging them to be more sparing in their use of the injunction power. Nevertheless, Chile will not be safe from prior censorship until the laws that regulate judges' powers to impound or confiscate publications are simplified and dovetailed to ensure that, under no circumstances, are judges authorized to ban publications and transmissions in advance.

The need for clear legislation on this point is reinforced by the conservative mentality of much of the Chilean judiciary on freedom of expression issues. In several jurisprudence-setting decisions, the Supreme Court has ruled that the right to honor takes precedence over freedom of expression. The protection of honor or reputation is recognized by international human rights law as a legitimate ground on which freedom of expression may be restricted. For example, libelous and defamatory statements, made with malicious intent or with reckless disregard for the truth, are not protected even in legal systems that provide generous protection of speech and opinion. However, the question of whether or not such statements are actionable in civil proceedings must be determined in a court of law with full consideration of the particular circumstances of the case. This determination may never be made in the abstract, on the basis that one right holds precedence by its nature over another. Much less may such arguments be used to justify prior bans on publications or transmissions.

Senior judges have even argued that censorship is solely practiced by dictatorial governments that establish shadowy bodies to review, cut and suppress material for political reasons before its publication or transmission. Such judges do not accept that censorship can also come from the judicial branch or exist in a democratic system of government. They have also, without any hesitation, rejected protection writs requested by freedom of expression advocates against the confiscation of publications, as happened when a group of civil rights lawyers tried to block the prohibition of the Black Book of Chilean Justice. Much of the judiciary has not kept abreast of changes in international law and jurisprudence on freedom of expression issues. To remedy this lack of awareness, the Chief Justice should ensure that judges are fully briefed on the freedom of expression standards set forth in the international human rights treaties Chile has ratified, and on the decisions and jurisprudence of the entities that enforce those treaties.

Nevertheless, the Chilean government has recognized the importance of strengthening the right of access topublic information. A concern to establish more progressive norms on this issue first found expression in 1994, when the Frei administration established a Commission on Public Ethics, an advisory body that recommended measures to improve the honesty and transparency of public administration. In January 1995 the government presented to Congress a bill on Honesty in Public Administration (Ley sobre Probidad Administrativa), Article 21(1) of which penalizes officials who "deny information or documentation requested in accordance with the law." The Honesty Law, which finally entered force in December 1999, amends the statutes governing state institutions and local government.

Article 11(1) of the amended law on state administration establishes the principle that records and documents of the state or of private enterprises that serve a public interest are in the public domain. If officials fail to respond to a request for information within forty-eight hours, a petitioner may lodge a complaint to a civil judge, and appeal it upwards to the Supreme Court.

The law, however, contains certain catch-all grounds that could serve as loopholes for officials seeking to evade their responsibility to meet demands for information. Although it recognizes the general right of access to official information, Article 11 also establishes as a legitimate ground for restricting such access that its granting could "harm the proper functioning of the organs of the State." This is a vague and inclusive criterion that could be cited by officials to restrict access without further justification, and the law does not provide a basis for assessing the "reasonableness" of restrictions on the basis of their effect on the public interest. Nevertheless, the law constitutes a significant advance on the virtually absolute discretion previously enjoyed by public servants on the matter of public access. .

Repeal Laws That Restrict Freedom of Expression, including Contempt of Authority Provisions
· As a top priority matter, the pending legislation to repeal Article 6(b) of the State Security Law, and the powers of prior censorship that judges currently enjoy under that law to confiscate and prohibit books and publications, should be passed.

· The government should also give top priority to the passage of legislation repealing all other contempt of authority laws, including Articles 263, 264 and 265 of the Criminal Code, and Articles 276 and 284 of the Code of Military Justice.

· The government should permanently abolish all laws that criminalize defamation in recognition of the principle that conflicts arising out of libel and calumny allegations should be resolved by civil litigation rather than criminal prosecution.

· All legislation giving judges the power in advance to impound publications and issue injunctions against the transmission of films and videos should be reviewed to ensure that they are consistent with the prohibition of prior censorship in the American Convention on Human Rights and the Chilean Constitution. All laws that refer to these powers should explicitly prohibit their use to remove publications of any kind from circulation. Libel liability should only be incurred after publication, and culpability must be established after a fair hearing.

· Congress should approve the proposal currently under consideration in the Senate to remove the crime of defamation from the Constitution.

Facilitate Access to Information
· The government should urgently review current legislation protecting privacy. Norms adopted to protect privacy should be framed so as to ensure protection of the press's right to investigate matters of public interest, defined broadly so that journalists and editors are not hampered by fear of prosecution or civil action from informing the public.

· Article 11 (bis) of the statute governing public administration should be amended to specify more precisely the categories of official documents to which access may be denied. The current criterion referring to "circumstances in which their publication may prevent or obstruct the proper functioning of the office of which the information is requested" is so vague that it makes it difficult to appeal successfully against officials who arbitrarily withhold information.

· Prosecutors' and judges' enforcement of secrecy rules should be based on the principle that any constraint on access to or provision of information must be the least restrictive means possible of protecting a legitimate interest such as national security, or the protection of witnesses, victims, or defendants in criminal proceedings.

End Film Censorship
· The current powers of the Film Classification Council to ban films and videos should be terminated. All classification decisions by the council should be public information and reviewable by an independent body. The council should be mandated to reclassify films previously classified by the council under the military government, and to authorize the exhibition of such films. Television channels should not be penalized for transmitting films classified by the council while ideological prohibitions were in force.

· Both the composition and the powers of the council should be reviewed to ensure that the body is democratic and representative of different sectors of society. The representation of the armed forces and police on this body is unacceptable in a democracy and should be discontinued.

Ensure Judicial Respect for Freedom of Expression
· Government and judicial authorities should review the recent decision of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in the case challenging the ban on The Last Temptation of Christ, and take the necessary steps to comply with it.

· The judiciary must ensure that its decisions are consistent with Chile's international obligations under the human rights treaties it has ratified, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the American Convention on Human Rights, and it must take note of the jurisprudence on freedom of expression of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. It must comply in full with decisions of the court in cases in which the Chilean State is a party.

· The government should provide the judiciary with updated information on decisions on freedom of expression issues reached by international human rights bodies, including relevant United Nations bodies such as the Human Rights Committee, and the Inter-American Commission and Court of Human Rights. Judicial training programs should include a full briefing on international legal standards and jurisprudence relating to freedom of expression.