On Wednesday, April 4, a court in Coyhaique, Chile, rejected a journalist's appeal for protection, brought by a senator and a human rights lawyer, after investigative police tried to confiscate the journalist's videos recorded at a protest in the region of Aysén, said Reporters Without Borders. The decision was "dangerous and inopportune," added Reporters Without Borders.
“The ruling determines that the policeman involved were following orders from the Public Ministry" against the journalist and director of TV channel Canal 40 TV Aysén, Samuel Chong Rivera; this means that “there is no arbitrariness in the proceeding,” reported the radio station Radio Bío-Bío.
The journalist will have to turn in the videotaped material, and if he doesn't, he may go to prison for contempt against a judicial order, said Chong in a report by Diario de Aysén.
The situation against journalists has worsened in Chile, which descended 47 places in the last World Press Freedom Index presented by Reporters Without Borders at the beginning of 2012. In March, Reporters Without Borders published a report expressing its concern for the police violence against journalists in Chile, which continues to happen in many protests around country.
