Hollywood actor and part time activist George Clooney was arrested outside the Sudanese embassy in Washington DC on Friday.

The actor, who was protesting against the government in Khartoum alongside his journalist father Nick, had his hands secured with zip ties before being ushered into the back of a waiting police van.

The police had ordered Clooney and his fellow protesters to disperse three times, and three times they were ignored. As the activists were blocking the entrance to the embassy, the authorities had no choice but to remove them by force.

While he was being arrested, Clooney told reporters on the scene that he was protesting aginst the brutal mistreatment of “innocent children” in Sudan.

“I’m just trying to raise attention,” Clooney said, according to the UK Guardian.

In reference to the Sudanese children, whose cause he has long supported, the actor made the following request: “Stop raping them and stop starving them,” he said. “That’s all that we ask.”

Clooney admitted that being arrested in public was an awkward experience, regardless of the apparent nobility of the crime.

“It’s actually a humiliating thing to be arrested no matter what you do, but I’m glad to be standing here with my father,” he said.

Clooney posted bail and was released later on Friday, telling journalists that despite the uncertain outcome of his protest, he was glad to have at least done something.

“You never know if you are accomplishing anything … We hope it helps,” he said, adding that it it was his first arrest and “let’s hope it’s my last.”

Clooney had previously testified in front of the Senate foreign relations commitee on the subject of human rights violations and abuse in the  Nuba mountains in South Kordofan.

He told the assembled senators about his experience in the area.

“We found children filled with shrapnel, including a nine-year-old boy who had both of his hands blown off.”

The globally recognised star has accused Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir and other top level government officials in the conflicted North African country of conducting systematic and large-scale executions in the area.

See a YouTube Video of George Clooney being arrested below.