Chile: More than 400 journalists have been attacked by state agents since 2019

Journalist Daniel Labbé was detained by Carabineros de Chile (militarized police) on January 21, 2021, while recording a demonstration in Plaza Dignidad in Santiago. 

They punched him several times and broke his lip. He was taken to a police station where he was held in a cell chained hand and foot overnight.

“Around 8:00 p.m., there were fewer people left, the Carabineros began to kick out, to push those who remained, including the press,” Labbé recalled in a conversation with Sputnik.

Carabineros occupied their deterrent cars for the protesters to leave the sector and, after them, an attack began in the surrounding streets to arrest whoever crossed their path.

“I was quite tired, wet, very wet, because the Carabineros had used the water cannon on us. When the Police advanced, I decided not to run. I have a heart problem. Therefore, I cannot activate myself like this from one moment to the next, my movement has to be gradual, I can’t arrive and run”, said Labbé.

The journalist made the decision not to run from the Carabineros, since he was recording the demonstrations in the exercise of his functions as a journalist. In addition, Labbé was carrying his press credential.

“I decided to stay there because I wasn’t doing anything, I was working. Suddenly, a police officer came towards me brutally, abruptly. The only thing I did was protect myself from the blow that that crazy man gave me,” the journalist said.

After the attack by the uniformed officer, Labbé resisted being arrested because it was an “illegal detention.” “Then two more super violent and aggressive policemen arrived. I began to show them my credential and yell that I was from the press. They listened and obviously ignored it,” he added.

The investigative file that the Prosecutor’s Office opened against Labbé is based only on testimonies from Carabineros. They even ignored the photographs and videos in which the journalist identifies himself as such and did not declare his illegal detention.

Labbé explained that all the Carabineros accusations are false. The even locates him on a street where he was not at the time of his arrest. The trial against the journalist continues in the courts and the Prosecutor’s Office determined that the facts constitute the crime of public disorder, for which it requests a sentence of 360 days of minor imprisonment in its minimum degree.

DATA THAT WORRIES

The situation experienced by Labbé is not the only one, nor is it an isolated case. The Observatory of the Right to Communication (ODC), a non-profit organization dedicated to the promotion and defense of freedom of expression, has registered more than 400 attacks by law enforcement against communicators between 2019 and 2021.

These are threats and intimidation against journalists and the media. Most of these attacks and acts of harassment occurred when the workers were covering the mobilizations and were committed mainly by officers of the Special Forces of the Carabineros.

According to the Report on Freedom of Expression in the Context of Protests and Mobilizations in Chile, between October 18 and December 31, 2019, 171 attacks on the press were documented.

In 2020 during the pandemic, 105 attacks were recorded: 75 were arbitrary arrests under the pretext of non-compliance with health prevention regulations or resisting authority. There was an increase in the use of deterrent gases and water cannons against the press. In 2021, 127 attacks against the press by State agents were verified.

HARASSMENT AND DETENTIONS UNDER THE NEW GOVERNMENT

In August 2022, the Chilean Investigative Police intercepted and transcribed calls from journalists with Héctor Llaitul, the Mapuche leader arrested on August 24, including Sputnik correspondent Carolina Trejo, who a month later was detained by Carabineros while she registered the third anniversary of the social outbreak.

The president of the Chilean Association of Journalists, Danilo Ahumada, told Sputnik that as a result of the repression carried out by State agents, “we had to set up a team of observers for the right to communication, which was a group of journalists who went out to directly protect colleagues in situations of violation of freedom of expression and also the exercise of the press.”

Due to the serious attacks against journalistic practice, Chile dropped 28 places in the world ranking of press freedom prepared by the international organization Reporters Without Borders; it went from 51st to 82nd in just one year.

Danilo Ahumada told Sputnik that they have filed several lawsuits against the State for violating press freedom and protecting some journalists, but points out that the situation has become “quite complex.”

The president of the College of Journalists himself was arrested. “I spent 30 hours in a cell. I was recording with a camera and the Carabineros threw pepper spray at my face.”

Ahumada says that after that he filed a complaint against the police official, but the investigation did not advance as a result of the actions of the uniformed police having been “naturalized.”

“Despite the change of government, today there are still violations of the exercise of the press,” concluded Ahumada.

With information from Sputnik