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    March 16, 2012

George Clooney Arrested Outside Sudanese Embassy in Washington

   VOA News
   Actor George Clooney, center, and Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., left, are led
   to a police vehicle after being arrested during a protest at the Sudan
   Embassy in Washington, March 16, 2012. Photo: AP
   Actor George Clooney, center, and Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., left, are led
   to a police vehicle after being arrested during a protest at the Sudan
   Embassy in Washington, March 16, 2012.

   Academy Award-winning actor George Clooney was arrested in Washington
   Friday, while taking part in a protest at the Sudanese Embassy.
   Clooney was among a number of activists arrested for civil
   disobedience. Also taken into custody were several members of Congress
   and Martin Luther King Jr.'s oldest son.
   Clooney testified before Congress this week on the continued violence
   in Sudan under Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.
   The actor has been a vocal advocate for peace in Sudan for years and
   recently returned from a trip to the country. Speaking before the
   Senate Foreign Relations Committee Wednesday, he warned of a
   humanitarian crisis in the border area between Sudan and
   newly-independent South Sudan.
   'We witnessed hundreds of people running to hills to hide in caves for
   their safety," Clooney said. "And that happens every day. These people
   are not the 'cave people of Nuba.' They actually live on farms and they
   have the oldest society in the world and yet now they are forced to
   hide in caves. It is a campaign of murder and fear and displacement and
   starvation. And that is also a fact."
   Oil-rich South Sudan seceded from Sudan last July and violence over the
   oil revenue has raged along the border since then.
   Clooney urged the United States to engage China, a major buyer of South
   Sudan's oil, to help deal with the humanitarian crisis in the region.
   Some information for this report was provided by AP.

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