The Chilean "Justice" System Is Not Net Savvy

Alejandra Matus, journalist, Chile, censorship, , El Libro Negro de la Justicia Chilena

Alejandra Matus. Courtesy of Copesa.

For the first time as well, I realized that the Internet was much more than a new technology: It was an it is a real and effective tool to fight for freedom of expression

By Orato Editor Cecilia Jamasmie , Canada

Date Posted: 11/14/06

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Journalist Alejandra Matus fled her native Chile for the United States in 1999, after a judge ordered the seizure of all copies of "El Libro Negro de la Justicia Chilena" (The Black Book of Chilean Justice), her expose of corruption among Chilean judges. In 2001, the Chilean Supreme Court lifted the ban on her book, enabling her to return to Chile without fear of arrest. I was just starting my career as a journalist in Chile, and I can say that for me and my entire generation, Matus' case made history and exalted the role of the Internet among Chilean journalists. Here's why.

On April 14, 1999, Rafael Huerta, judge of the Santiago High Court, ordered police officials to go the premises of Planeta, one of the most important publishing houses in Chile's capital city, to seize the first edition of The Black Book of Chilean Justice, a book written by 25-year-old journalist Alejandra Matus. Her crime? Exposing the Chilean judicial system for being unjust and documenting the reasons for her accusations.

The same afternoon, police officers went to all the bookshops in the country and confiscated the remaining issues. That very moment changed not only Matus's life, but the role of all journalists in Chile, especially those writing for news Web sites at that time. I was one of them.

I am still surprised when I remember how quickly we reacted to the news. While all the copies of The Black Book were being collected and taken to gather dust in a police cellar, the Association of Digital Journalists of Chile (APD) planned how it would deceive the Chilean press law. Since it didn't consider the Internet as media, we decided that it was up to us to bring the book to the people, online.

Those were challenging hours for the Chilean press. As soon as I heard the news on the radio, my telephone started to ring. At that time, I was the Information Technology editor for El Diario, the most important financial newspaper in the country, as well as the webmaster for its online edition. APD representatives called me asking if I would agree to add a link in El Diario's Web site to a version of the banned book that the organization had posted on the Internet.