George Clooney arrested during protest

Actor George Clooney arrested.

The Oscar winner along with his father and human rights and faith leaders, were cuffed for civil disobedience outside of the Sudanese Embassy in Washington, DC.

Clooney and other activists ignored three police warnings to leave the embassy grounds and were led away to a Secret Service van in handcuffs.

The group was protesting the humanitarian emergency in Sudan that threatens the lives of 500,000 people.

Before his arrest, Clooney thanked the crowd for coming and explained their cause.

SOUNDBITE: George Clooney, actor, saying (English):

"We're here really to ask two very simple questions. The first question is something immediate. Immediately we need humanitarian aid to be allowed in to the Sudan before it becomes the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. Immediately. The second thing we are here to ask - it's a very simple thing - is for the government in Khartoum to stop randomly killing its own innocent men, women, and children. Stop raping them and stop starving them - that's all we ask."

Clooney, who recently visited Sudan, told a Senate hearing this week that Sudan's forces were launching repeated attacks on unarmed civilians.

And, preventing aid from reaching a region where U.S. officials say as many as 250,000 people face severe food shortages.

Alicia Powell, Reuters.