George Clooney was handcuffed and arrested today outside the Sudanese embassy in Washington, D.C., for protesting the country’s blockage of food and aid from entering the Nuba Mountains region, MSNBC is reporting. The Academy Award-winning actor, who is a long political activist, was also protesting Sudan’s treatment of its people.
Clooney’s father, journalist Nick Clooney, was also with his son and was arrested, as were Martin Luther King III, NAACP President Ben Jealous, Rep. Jim McGovern, Rep. Jim Moran and former Rep. Tom Andrews. Before being arrested, Clooney told the crowd gathered at the embassy that “we need immediate humanitarian aid into Sudan before it becomes the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.” He added that “the (Sudanese) government in Khartoum to stop randomly killing its own innocent men, women and children. Stop starving them.”
In Sudan’s Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile regions, half a million people risk starvation due to the blockage of supplies. Clooney added that the upcoming rainy season will make the situation worse.
Clooney and those arrested knew they would be apprehended, as the embassy is private property. They were warned three times before police moved in to make the arrests. The arrests come after the actor testified about the situations in Sudan in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He then met with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Obama. However, Clooney then told reporters that the U.S. “is still the most generous country in the world.”
Written by: Karen Benardello
