Signed by President Sebastián Piñera, interior minister Ricardo Hinzpeter
and justice minister Teodoro Ribera, and submitted to congress on 1 October,
the bill alludes to the ongoing protests when it says its aim is to “perfect
and reinforce the regulations that enable an effective maintenance of public
order.”

The bill, a copy of which has been obtained by Reporters Without Borders,
reaffirms the right to demonstrate peacefully but lumps “public order
disturbance,” “paralysis” and “disorder” together with “violence.” By their
nature, demonstrations tend to generate disorder and paralysis but do not
necessarily lead to violence.

The same confusion is seen in the bill’s main innovation, which is a
sentence of between 18 months and three years in prison for any person found
guilty of:

– *invading, occupying or ransacking rooms or offices of commercial,
industrial, religious or other establishments*

– *preventing or disrupting the free flow of individuals and vehicles on
bridges, streets, roads and other similar installations used by the public.*

“It is hard not to see the first of these two sets of offences as a direct
allusion to the (peaceful) student occupations of *Chilevisión*, the TV
station that Piñera owned before he became president,” Reporters Without
Borders said. “In the absence of any precision, does this mean that anyone
sitting in a corridor or a studio of a news organization could be sentenced
to three years in prison?

“As regards the second set of offences, it is hard to imagine demonstrators
staging a march anywhere other than a street, road or bridge. These
provisions would be laughable if they did not threaten the right to
demonstrate, one of the pillars of freedom of expression.”

Reporters Without Borders accepts the principle of penalizing “attacks on
the authority of the security forces,” which would subject to the same
sanction (18 months to three years in prison) under this bill. But it
condemns the lack of any sanctions for indiscriminate violence against
protesters by the police, a frequent occurrence at this year’s student
protests [http://en.rsf.org/chile-mounting-abuses-and-violence-15-09-2011,40995.html](http://en.rsf.org/chile-mounting-abuses-and-violence-15-09-2011,40995.html).

Such violence has also been seen at demonstrations by environmentalist
groups and the Mapuche indigenous community against the HydroAysén
hydro-electric project [http://en.rsf.org/chile-press-freedom-cases-highlight-17-05-2011,40290.html](http://en.rsf.org/chile-press-freedom-cases-highlight-17-05-2011,40290.html).

**Media informers?**

Another alarming aspect of the bill is “a new power for the law enforcement
and security forces, under which they can request the voluntary transmission
of recordings, film or other electronic media material that may serve to
substantiate the existence of crimes or participation in crimes, without a
prior order from the state prosecutor.”

The bill adds that this power would be used “in circumstances in which
crimes against public order are committed and in which the frequent presence
of mass media facilitates the existence of evidence substantiating these
crimes.”

“In other words, carabineros and police officers would be able to request
and use media material to identify presumed offenders whenever they wanted,
violating the rules about judicial controls in the gathering of evidence and
violating the confidentiality of journalists’ information,” Reporters
Without Borders said. “Journalists are neither police auxiliaries nor police
informers. This clause wants to turn them into informers. The bill must be
withdrawn.”