Minneapolis, September 21 (RHC)-- A judge in the U.S. state of Minnesota has dismissed criminal charges against three Indigenous water protectors who were arrested while protesting at the construction site of Enbridge’s Line 3 pipeline in 2021. 

The three women — Winona LaDuke, Tania Aubid and Dawn Goodwin — were arrested on the banks of the Mississippi River on ceded Anishinaabe land as they sang, danced and prayed near construction crews. 

In a landmark opinion by Aitkin County Judge Leslie Metzen, she wrote that the women were exercising their rights to free speech and to freely express their spiritual beliefs.  She dismissed the charges against them “in the interests of justice,” concluding: “To criminalize their behavior would be the crime.”