George Clooney Arrested in Protest Outside Sudanese Embassy

Clooney arrested for crossing police line while calling on the Sudanese president to lift a food blockade

George Clooney was arrested Friday while participating in a protest outside the Sudanese Embassy in Washington, DC. 

The actor was at the event in his capacity as president of United to End Genocide. 

Along with other political and faith leaders, Clooney called on Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir to immediately end the blockade that they allege is preventing food and humanitarian aid from reaching the people of Sudan’s Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile regions.

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He was arrested for crossing a police line, as were Martin Luther King III, NAACP President Ben Jealous, former Rep. Tom Andrews (D-Maine), and current Reps. Jim McGovern and John Olver (both Massachusetts Democrats), Al Green (D-Texas), Jim Moran (D-Va.).

Clooney's father, Nick, was also arrested. 

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Clooney was handcuffed and put in a Secret Service van. He has been transported to the metropolitan police department second district, Secret Service spokesman George Oglivie told TheWrap. 

A spokeswoman for United to End Genocide told TheWrap the group was aware that protestors might face arrest because the embassy is on private property. She said that she expected the actor and the other protestors to be processed and released on bail within the next few hours. 

The arrests come two days after Clooney  testified to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and urged congressional leaders to push China to stop investing in Sudan until it stops human rights abuses. Sudan remains a major source of China's oil, the actor said. 

Clooney told the committee that he had recently returned from an eight-day trip to the Nuba Mountains, where he accused al-Bashir's government of attempting a kind of ethnic cleansing.

Clooney said that people living in the region are subjected to indiscriminate bombings from the air and have been forced to hide in caves.

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