(Washington, D.C.) A Chilean court order barring a television station from broadcasting a program about a murder case violates international human rights standards, Human Rights Watch said today.
A Santiago court yesterday ordered Chilean National Television not to air a program about a notorious murder case that made headlines several years ago. The case involved a Santiago lawyer who was stabbed to death in his office while entertaining prostitutes. Two sisters were arrested for the crime, and one of them, Marcela Imil, was sentenced to fifty years in prison.
The show’s producer, Patricio Polanco, told Human Rights Watch that the program included compelling evidence that Marcela Imil may have been wrongfully convicted.
“This ban is a clear case of prior censorship,” said José Miguel Vivanco, Executive Director of the Americas Division of Human Rights Watch. “Once again, a Chilean court has ignored binding protections on free expression contained in the American Convention on Human Rights.”
Article 13 of the American Convention on Human Rights guarantees the right to “seek, receive, and impart information and ideas of all kinds.” It stipulates expressly that the exercise of this right shall not be subject to prior censorship, but only to the subsequent imposition of liability. Chile ratified the Convention in 1990.
A panel of the Santiago Appeals Court barred the program on the request of the widow of the murdered lawyer. She claimed that public broadcast of the program would violate her constitutional right to honor and privacy, and that of her three children.
The program, part of a prize-winning documentary crime series called Enigma: In Search of the Truth, was scheduled to air on July 23 and had been widely advertised. It reportedly includes a statement signed by Beatriz Imil confessing to the crime and insisting that her sister Marcela was innocent. It also cites a police report questioning the authenticity of key testimony incriminating Marcela.
Polanco told Human Rights Watch that neither the plaintiff, nor her lawyers, nor the judges had viewed the program.
Research conducted for an earlier Enigma feature led to a criminal case being reopened. As a result, a woman found to have been wrongly sentenced to fifteen years in prison was pardoned by the president.
Although Chile has taken steps in recent years to bring its laws into line with international standards on free expression, its judiciary continues to lag behind.
