WASHINGTON — George Clooney and his father were arrested Friday during a protest outside the Sudanese Embassy, and the actor said he has asked President Barack Obama to engage China on stopping a humanitarian crisis in northern Africa.
The protesters accuse Sudanese 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.
Clooney, his father, Nick Clooney, and others including Democratic U.S. Rep. Jim Moran of Virginia, NAACP President Ben Jealous and Martin Luther King III, were arrested after being warned three times not to cross a police line outside the embassy. They were handcuffed and placed into a U.S. Secret Service van.
The arrest came after Clooney met this week with Obama, testified in the Senate and attended a state dinner for British Prime Minister David Cameron.