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. 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.