Clooney being led away after his arrest. (Photo by Keith Carroll for DCist)

A few hours after he was arrested outside the Embassy of Sudan while protesting that country’s record on human rights, George Clooney was released from custody after paying a $100 fine.

Earlier Friday, the Academy Award-winning actor visited the embassy to cap of a week of lobbying the federal government to step up its humanitarian aid to the Sudanese people, especially those living in the Nuba Mountains on the border with newly formed South Sudan. Human rights activists accuse the Sudanese government, led by President Omar al-Bashir, of blocking food and medical aid to the wartorn region.

“What we’ve been trying to achieve today is we’re trying to bring attention to an ongoing emergency,” Clooney told reporters after being released, according to CBS News. “Our job right now is to try to bring attention to it, and one of those ways was, apparently, get arrested.”

Clooney, who also said this was the first time he had been arrested, was jocular about his jailhouse experience: “It was really rough, you can imagine. Have you ever been in a cell with these guys?” he said.

The other guys arrested by U.S. Secret Service agents guarding the embassy this morning included Nick Clooney, the actor’s father and a former newspaper columnist; Benjamin Jealous, president of the NAACP; Martin Luther King III, son of Martin Luther King Jr.; the comedian and activist Dick Gregory; and Reps. James P. Moran (D-Va.), Al Green (D-Texas), James McGovern (D-Mass.) and John Olver (D-Mass.).

Via the Associated Press, here’s raw video of Clooney being handcuffed and taken to a U.S. Secret Service police van which, as the Washington City Paper caught, was marked “Ecret Service.”