Home > Glover Arrested in Protest
by Josh Grossberg
It wasn’t any lethal weapon that got Danny Glover on the wrong side of the law.
The activism-minded actor was arrested Saturday outside Sudan’s embassy in Washington, D.C., during a protest against the African nation’s government over the deepening humanitarian crisis in the country’s Darfur region.
Addressing a crowd of demonstrators, Glover called for swift international intervention to halt attacks that the United States Congress has declared a genocide. More than 50,000 Sudanese have been killed so far at the hands of pro-government Arab militias who are terrorizing black citizens and driving them off their land.
"We want an end to the hostility," Glover said. "We must continue to put pressure on the Sudanese government. We must continue to demand justice, and we must continue to demand peace for the people of Darfur."
Following his speech, Glover was led away in handcuffs by the U.S. Secret Service and charged with disorderly conduct and unlawful assembly.
About 200 activists turned up for Wednesday’s protest, chanting slogans like "stop the killing now" and carrying signs with the message "Read My Lips: It’s Genocide." The Sudanese embassy was forced to close its doors on Monday due to the demonstrations, which have been going on for weeks in an attempt to pressure Khartoum into ending the fighting.
According to estimates by the United Nations, the situation in Sudan has left more than 1.2 million people homeless with more than 200,000 forced to seek refuge across the border in Chad. The United Nations Security Council has set next Monday as the deadline for Sudan’s government to disarm the militias.
Glover was not available Thursday to comment on his arrest.
But the actor, who serves as chairman of the board of TransAfrica Forum, a nonprofit organization dedicated to "educating the public, particularly African-Americans, about the economic, political and moral implications of U.S. foreign policy," is used to using his celebrity to focus the spotlight on hot-button political issues.
Last May 2003, in the early stages of the Iraq War, the Lethal Weapon star was one of 160 celebs to sign an open letter criticizing the invasion as illegal and unjustified.
In turn, the conservative activist group Judicial Watch lobbied MCI to drop Glover as a pitchman. However, the phone company declined to do so and the thespian brushed off the boycott threat, labeling it an attack on free speech.
Aside from his civil disobedience, Glover remains busy with his day job. He just signed on as one of the lead voices in the upcoming Paramount animated feature The Barnyard. He will join Courteney Cox, Kevin James, Sam Elliott and Wanda Sykes in the comedy about what a group of animals do when the farmer leaves.
The ’toon is one of many projects Glover has in the pipeline. He has completed work on the film dramas The Woodcutter and Manderlay and the TV movie The Exonerated, and is due to finish up the sci-fi miniseries Earthsea before segueing to the thriller Duplicity.