"I'm Not a Criminal... Enbridge Is": Charges Tossed Against Winona LaDuke & Others for Pipeline Action

A Minnesota judge has dismissed criminal charges against three Indigenous water protectors who were arrested for protesting oil extraction on treaty-ceded Anishinaabe land. Winona LaDuke, Tania Aubid and Dawn Goodwin were arrested in January 2021 after police saw video shared on social media of the three women singing, dancing and praying near construction crews for Canadian energy company Enbridge's Line 3 tar sands oil pipeline. In a landmark opinion, Judge Leslie Metzen affirmed the protesters' free speech rights, writing that to criminalize their behavior would be the crime." We go to the White Earth Indian Reservation to speak to Winona LaDuke, an Anishinaabekwe enrolled member of the Mississippi band of Ashinaabeg and a longtime environmental activist, about the case and the ongoing protests against Line 3. I'm glad to not be in jail," says LaDuke. I'm not a criminal, and Enbridge is."