Shailene Woodley has been arrested for trespassing while protesting the Dakota Access pipeline on Monday morning.
The star of the Divergent series was handcuffed while participating in what she called a ‘peaceful protest’ in Sioux County, North Dakota.
Footage of the 24-year-old’s arrest was captured on her Facebook Live stream by her mother.
She was one of about 100 protesters at a construction site for the controversial pipeline project. 26 other people were also arrested, according to TMZ.
The website reports that Shailene was booked on two misdemeanours, one of which was engaging in a riot.
In the Facebook Live clip, the Divergent star claimed several times that she was being arrested because she is famous, while several others who also took part in the protest were able to leave freely.
‘I was walking back to my RV which is right there, so that we can go back to camp peacefully,’ she told fans shortly before she was handcuffed.
‘And they grabbed me by my jacket and they said that I wasn’t allowed to continue and they have giant guns and batons and zip ties. And they’re not letting me go.’
The police then placed her under arrest for ‘criminal trespassing’ and led her away.
‘But why am I being arrested and no one else is who was down there?’ Shailene asked. ‘Is it because I’m famous? Is it because people know who I am?’
The actress was told she had been ‘identified’, but claimed that ‘hundreds of people’ were involved and added: ‘When you asked us to leave we did.’
Pointing to her mother, who was filming, Shailene said: ‘She was down there, everybody was down there. I’m being arrested.
‘I was down there with everybody else. I don’t know what’s going on. As soon as they came, I left. It’s because I’m well-known. It’s because I have 40,000 people watching.’
The star added to the camera: ‘So everybody knows we were going to our vehicle which they had all surrounded, and waiting for me with giant guns and a giant truck behind them, just so they could arrest me, so they knew this would happen. I hope you’re watching mainstream media.’
Shortly afterwards Mark Ruffalo voiced his support for Shailene on Facebook, sharing her live stream and writing: ‘This is clearly a trampling of our first amendment rights. The right to peaceful protest. This is real thug behavior where the state is in service of corporate interests.
‘The native treatise have granted these lands to the Native People. They faced great bloodshed and oppression for the right for the US government to honor these treaties. This is state sponsored brutality and oppression and nothing less.’
Shailene has strongly campaigned against the pipeline and attended a rally in Washington in August.
The latest protest comes after a federal appeals court opened the door for construction to resume on the small stretch of the four-state Dakota Access pipeline while it considers an appeal by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.
The ruling, which was made on Sunday, removed a temporary injunction that halted work on the project.
The tribe had asked the U. S Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to continue work stoppage on the pipeline within 20 miles of Lake Oahe in North Dakota. The court earlier ordered work to stop while it considered the motion.
In a statement, Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Chairman Dave Archambault II said that the tribe ‘is not backing down from this fight.’
‘We will not rest until our lands, people, waters and sacred places are permanently protected from this destructive pipeline,’ Archambault said.
Owned by Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners, the $3.8 billion, 1,172-mile project would carry nearly a half-million barrels of crude oil daily from North Dakota’s oil fields through South Dakota and Iowa to an existing pipeline in Patoka, Illinois, where shippers can access Midwest and Gulf Coast markets.
The company did not immediately return an email Sunday seeking comment on the court’s decision.
The pipeline passes near Standing Rock Sioux reservation land that straddles the North Dakota-South Dakota border. The tribe’s protest encampment near the confluence of the Missouri and Cannonball rivers has swelled to thousands at times as demonstrators from around the country joined their cause.
Tribal and state officials also are at odds over whether sacred sites were destroyed while digging the pipeline corridor. The state archaeologist has said an inspection found no sign that the area contained human remains or cultural artifacts.
Congressman Kevin Cramer applauded the ruling. ‘I look forward to the workers getting back to work, doing the jobs they need to do Monday morning,’ the North Dakota Republican said in a statement.
The court hasn’t decided on the tribe’s appeal of a September ruling by U. S. District Judge James Boasberg, who declined to shut down work on the entire pipeline. He said the Sioux hadn’t demonstrated that an injunction was warranted.
Though work may resume, three federal agencies — Interior, Justice and Army — immediately ordered that construction stop on land owned by the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers next to and underneath Lake Oahe as it reviews its permitting decisions.
