'Snowden' actress Shailene Woodley arrested and handcuffed during pipeline protest in North Dakota

Shailene Woodley was reportedly taken into custody and narrated her own arrest by posting a video on Facebook, after being arrested for two misdemeanours including engaging in a riot at a protest in North Dakota.

The 24-year-old Snowden actress, who is well known for her environmental activism, was protesting against a planned pipeline that the Native American Standing Rock Sioux Tribe say will pollute water supplies and desecrate sacred land.

The actress had been live-streaming the protest all morning and on her arrest, handed the camera over to her mother, who was also at the protest. "Record this. Don't stop," Woodley appears to tell her. An alleged police officer's voice is heard on the video saying she was being arrested for trespassing.

However the Divergent star disputed the officer's claim, saying she was walking back towards her car when "they grabbed me by my jacket and said that I wasn't allowed to continue ... and they have giant guns and batons and zip ties and they are not letting me go."

While being led away in handcuffs, the actress says on the video that she was targeted "because I'm well-known, and have 40,000 people watching," according to Fortune. Over 1.5 million people watched her Facebook Live video.

The Tribe are protesting against the proposed construction of a $3.7bn, 1,172-mile pipeline that would carry 400,000 barrels of crude oil from production regions through South Dakota and Iowa before reaching an existing pipeline in Illinois.

Police officials told TMZ that they issued many warnings requesting that protesters leave the area. In total, 27 people were arrested.

On Sunday (9 October), a Federal Court rejected a request by a Native tribe to stop the building of the Dakota Access pipeline. However, the tribe added that the ruling was "not the final word," and that government approval was still necessary.