Clooney Among Protesters Arrested at Sudan’s Embassy in Washington
by Ashley SOUTHALL, The Lede, The New York Times, March 16, 2012
The actor George Clooney, his father, Nick Clooney, and Representative James P. Moran of Virginia were among more than a dozen protesters arrested Friday outside the Sudanese Embassy in Washington. The arrests were confirmed by a spokeswoman for the congressman and a spokesman for the Secret Service, which made the arrests.
The protesters were demonstrating to bring attention to accusations that Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, is using military force to block food and humanitarian aid intended for civilians in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile in a mountainous region on the country’s shared border with South Sudan. South Sudan split from northern Sudan in July.
Anne Hughes, the spokeswoman, said that 14 people were arrested, including the actor Dick Gregory, Martin Luther King III, a civil rights activist, and Benjamin T. Jealous, the president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Other demonstrators arrested included Representatives Jim McGovern and John Olver, both Massachusetts Democrats; Representative Al Green, Democrat of Texas; and John Prendergast, a human rights activist and the co-founder of the Enough Project.
Max Milien, a spokesman for the Secret Service, said the protesters would be charged with the disorderly crossing of a police line, a misdemeanor. He could not confirm how many people had been arrested.
For Mr. Clooney, the arrest caps a week in Washington spent trying to draw attention to the Sudanese conflict that included testifying before a Senate Committee and attending a state dinner at the White House in honor of Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain. Mr. Clooney warned Friday that the situation was deteriorating into “a real humanitarian disaster,” and praised President Obama’s personal engagement on it, the Associated Press reported.
American officials estimate that some 500,000 civilians in the region are being deprived of food, medicine and other necessities provided by international aid organizations. In January, Susan E. Rice, the American ambassador to the United Nations, warned that if no new aid reached the region by March, the situation would be “one step short of full- scale famine.”
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