E/CN.4/2004/80/Add.3 page 15 35. In the past year, under the reformed criminal procedure, proceedings have been started against a group of Mapuche leaders with links to a de facto coordinating group for the offence of “conspiring to commit a terrorist act” and other offences (mostly setting fire to forests, buildings and equipment). For this reason, a large number of leaders have been in pre-trial detention since December 2002. According to the information given to the Special Rapporteur, this offence is defined in the Counter-Terrorism Act, which has been in force since the military Government took power in 1973 and which provides for the prosecution of illicit acts intended to terrorize the population. The provisions of the Act modify some aspects of criminal procedure, permitting some elements of secrecy in the pre-trial investigation phase, eliminating preventive measures other than pre-trial detention, and increasing sentences. The possibility of protecting witnesses, which is permitted under the Anti-Terrorism Act, cancels out some of the advantages of oral proceedings and introduces a serious imbalance in the weight given to oral testimony as opposed to documentary and material evidence. 36. Finally, under the legislation still in force, all acts involving a member of the police or armed forces as the alleged perpetrator or victim of an offence are outside the jurisdiction of the ordinary criminal courts (and thus the scope of the Public Prosecutor’s Office and Public Defender’s Office) and are referred to military courts, which follow their own procedures. 37. In the opinion of some experts, this combination of a new criminal procedure, the counter-terrorist law and military jurisdiction creates a situation in which the right to due process is weakened, and this affects, in a selective way, a clearly identified group of Mapuche leaders. This is a matter of concern, regardless of the seriousness of the acts in which they may have been involved, with regard to respect for their right to due process. The Special Rapporteur visited Ms. Mireya Figueroa, an indigenous Mapuche woman from the Tricauco community in Region IX, in the women’s prison in Temuco. She had been held for over six months while awaiting trial, accused, according to a letter sent to the Special Rapporteur in July 2003, of a terrorist attack, arson and conspiracy. During the meeting, she reported several irregularities in the case, including flaws in the investigatory process that undercut several procedural guarantees. The Special Rapporteur, in his meetings with officials, expressed his concern about the irregularities in the case of Mireya Figueroa and also about the length of time she had been waiting for trial, all of which raised doubts about the protection of her fundamental rights. 38. The situation described above is perceived by most traditional leaders of indigenous communities and by the activists in their organizations as an attempt to criminalize their protests, which they see as a just claim for land and a basically political demand for a new deal from the State.