OMG, look who got arrested earlier today:
Yes, that’s George Clooney. The movie star. He’s now free, along with his dad and a group of other prominent activists who were protesting on behalf of the people of Sudan, in front of the Sudanese embassy in Washington, DC.
Clooney and the other protesters were put in plastic handcuffs and removed from the steps of the embassy earlier Friday after accusing Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir of provoking a crisis and blocking food and aid from entering the Nuba Mountains in the county’s border region with South Sudan.
The arrests began after protesters were warned three times not to cross a police line. They were rounded up and put into a U.S. Secret Service van as others in the crowd chanted “al-Bashir to the ICC.”
George Clooney and his father, Nick Clooney, were handcuffed and led away during Friday’s protest.The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for the Sudanese president on charges including genocide in 2009, but the African Union has ignored the warrant and al-Bashir has freely travelled outside Sudan several times since then.
Serious shit, huh?
And that’s not all he did, either. He actually went to Sudan and risked his neck to see the Sudanese genocide for himself, report on it, and get informed as well as involved. And he’s still helping a local project record and document the ongoing atrocities, so a case can eventually be brought before the International Criminal Court. Yes, that’s real journalism. It’s also real evidence-gathering. Which makes him look at least a thousand percent more credible than those creepy Kony 2012 posers. (Speaking of whom, one of them has had a very weird episode yesterday; looks like he has gone, er, through the Looking Glass, I guess is the nicest way of putting it. This story is very much developing, and Gawker is right on top of it all.)
ETA: Fuck yeah, Charlie Brooker — England’s answer to Jon Stewart:
Gotta love those fake-newsers. They are actually better journalists than the “real” thing. Which begs the question: Why ARE the lamestream media so, well, LAME? Why can’t THEY be this critical/cynical/on the ball about the issues? (And dang, doesn’t Jason Russell have crazy eyes in those clips they showed? I’m beginning to think his breakdown was at least in part due to being in a creepy cult here; religious brainwashing can certainly derange a person. Poor soul.)
