George Clooney was today taken away in handcuffs after being arrested at a protest outside the Sudanese Embassy in Washington.
The 50-year-old actor, his father Nick and a number of other protesters had been given three verbal warnings by police not to cross a police line outside the embassy before being taken into custody.
With his hands cuffed behind his back in white zip-ties, Clooney addressed the plight of 'innocent children' in Sudan.
'Stop raping them and stop starving them,' he said. 'That's all that we ask.'
The protestors accuse Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir, of provoking a humanitarian crisis and blocking food and aid from entering the Nuba Mountains in the county's border region with South Sudan.
As the Hollywood star was led into a police van a supporter shouted, 'Thank you, George!'
Shortly before his arrest, the academy award winning actor said: 'We are here really to ask two very simple questions,' according a report on CNN.
'The first question is something immediate - and immediately we need humanitarian aid to be allowed into the Sudan before it becomes the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.'
Clooney added that the second thing he was there for, 'is for the government in Khartoum to stop randomly killing its own innocent men, women and children. Stop raping them and stop starving them.'
Others protestors, including Democratic U.S. Rep. Jim Moran of Virginia and NAACP President Ben Jealous, were also arrested.
The group had held a sign that read: ‘Sudan: Stop Weapons of Mass Starvation’ as they walked to the site.
Clooney is in Washington after returning from a tour of Sudan on Tuesday.
On Wednesday he testified in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the subject of violence in the region.
He also Clooney met President Barack Obama at the White House to express his concerns for the people of Sudan.
Clooney called on US officials to out pressure on the Chinese government to force the government of Sudan to open the southern region of the country to relief efforts ahead of the rainy season, during which large numbers of the region's inhabitants could face starvation.
According to Clooney, President Obama promised to press Chinese president Hu Jintao on the issue at an upcoming meeting.
After the meeting the actor said that he hoped to draw more attention to the issue and is impressed with President Obama's personal engagement on it.
The actor also said that if action is not taken in the next three to four months ‘we're going to have a real humanitarian disaster.’
Inspired by his broadcaster father Clooney has spent years supporting humanitarian causes and political campaigns including fighting for justice in Sudan, defending gay rights and backing Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.
The prominent liberal came out against the Iraq war in 2003 and has even had to rule himself out of running for president arguing he had taken too many drugs and slept with too many women to run for the White Housr.
The Hollywood actor’s main focus, however, has been campaigning to intervene in the civil war in the Sudan.
The conflict began in 2003 when two rebel groups in Darfur took up arms against the Sudanese government.
Clooney works with the Save Darfur advocacy group, who fight for international intervention in the Darfur genocide and in 2006, after a 5-day visit to Darfur, Clooney spoke out against the atrocities – urging greater US and NATO involvement.
Later that year he testified before the UN Security Council, urging that UN peacekeepers enter Darfur.
Watch a video of the arrest:
Inspired by his broadcaster father Clooney has spent years supporting humanitarian causes and political campaigns including fighting for justice in Sudan, defending gay rights and backing Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.
The prominent liberal came out against the Iraq war in 2003 and has even had to rule himself out of running for president arguing he had taken too many drugs and slept with too many women to run for the White Housr.
The Hollywood actor’s main focus, however, has been campaigning to intervene in the civil war in the Sudan.
The conflict began in 2003 when two rebel groups in Darfur took up arms against the Sudanese government.
Clooney works with the Save Darfur advocacy group, who fight for international intervention in the Darfur genocide and in 2006, after a 5-day visit to Darfur, Clooney spoke out against the atrocities – urging greater US and NATO involvement.
Later that year he testified before the UN Security Council, urging that UN peacekeepers enter Darfur.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2115961/George-Clooney-arrested-Sudan-protest.html#ixzz1pIfyBAsW
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