58 208. Thus, had these same crimes been committed by other persons, they would have been prosecuted and punished under the regular criminal justice system. However, in these three cases, the actions were classified as terrorist offenses based on the victims’ affiliation and/or association with the Mapuche indigenous people; the rulings did not establish a direct relationship between the facts under investigation and the acts of violence allegedly committed by a minority group. Absent this legal reasoning, the difference in treatment based on ethnic origin and/or affiliation with a given ethnic group was not justified by the State. Therefore, the Commission concludes that it was an act of racial discrimination in violation of Article 24 of the American Convention in relation to Article 1(1) thereof, to the detriment of Segundo Aniceto Norín Catrimán, Pascual Huentequeo Pichún Paillalao, Florencio Jaime Marileo Saravia, José Huenchunao Mariñán, Juan Patricio Marileo Saravia, Juan Ciriaco Millacheo Lican, Patricia Roxana Troncoso Robles and Víctor Manuel Ancalaf Llaupe. 5. The criminal convictions and the right to freedom of thought and expression 209. The Commission has concluded that the victims in the instant case were tried and punished for terrorist offenses on account of the fact that they belonged to the Mapuche indigenous people. The Commission has also noted that these criminal proceedings were held in the context of social and political mobilizations of the Mapuche people commonly represented as the “Mapuche conflict” by a number of government authorities, including the judges that handed down the convictions in the instant case. The Commission believes that the references to ethnic factors in those judgments cannot be considered separately from the references to the social protest activities of the Mapuche people; it was precisely these activities that gave rise to the stereotypes of the Mapuche leaders and activists which, in turn, led certain acts to be classified as terrorist offenses. 210. The Commission has previously observed that social demonstrations are important to strengthen the democratic life of societies and that, generally speaking, this form of participation in public life, as an exercise in freedom of expression, plays a key social role. Therefore, the State is bound by an 207 even stricter framework in justifying a limitation on the exercise of this right. In the instant case, the Commission finds that the criminal decisions amounted to an arbitrary use of criminal law prompted, at least in part, by the fact that the persons convicted were linked to an indigenous people well known for its social mobilizations. The predisposition of the judges to discriminate led them, in their analysis of the applicable crime, to put lawful social protest activities together with illegal acts. In that sense, it represented an arbitrary interference in the exercise of freedom of thought and expression of these persons, in violation of Article 13 of the American Convention taken together with Article 1(1) thereof. Naturally, this interference also had an intimidating and suppressing effect on the freedom of expression of the Mapuche people in general, bearing in mind the severity and the criminal nature of the penalties 208 involved. C. Indigenous peoples’ right to preserve their cultural identity, including their socio cultural structure, from discriminatory criminal prosecution of their traditional authorities. 211. The IACHR must emphasize that for a Mapuche indigenous community, the criminal prosecution of its Lonkos and Werkén, the community’s traditional authorities, under the circumstances of racial discrimination and violation of the principle of legality shown to have existed in these cases, is a terrible injustice that has implications for the entire Mapuche social fabric. As previously explained, Pascual Pichún and Aniceto Norín are Lonkos; in other words, they are the highest-ranking leaders or heads of their respective communities. Víctor Ancalaf is a Werkén, in other words, his community’s messenger or envoy. Together, the Lonko and Werkén constitute the local indigenous leadership. 207 208 IACHR, Annual Report of the Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression, 2002, Chapter IV, par. 34. See, IACHR, Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression. The Inter-American Legal Framework regarding the Right to Freedom of Expression. OEA/Ser.L/V/II CIDH/RELE/INF. 2/09. December 30, 2009, par. 114.