Famous and arrested. for a good cause
The supermodel Amber Valleta is part of this Friday the group of celebrities who have ended up in jail after being arrested in a demonstration or protest. Valleta was participating in one of the Fire Drill Fridays, the protest campaign organized by a veteran and popular activist, the actress Jane Fonda, who raises her voice every Friday in front of the Washington Capitol against climate change. In this week's action, actresses Rosanna Arquette and Diane Lane were also arrested.
The political commitment of Jane Fonda is well known. At 82 years old, she now embraces the cause of environmentalism, inspired, as she explains, by the young Greta Thunberg. A red coat (which the actress assures will be the last piece of clothing she will buy in her life) is the symbol of her struggle. She has been arrested four times this month alone.
But the list of issues that Fonda has mobilized for throughout her life is extensive and she starts from a very young age, especially after her marriage, in 1973, with the left-wing activist Tom Hayden. . Hand in hand with her, Ella Fonda got fully involved and risked her own career in opposition to the Vietnam War, a country to which she came to travel in the middle of the war.
After the conflict, she has continued to fight against other issues, such as nuclear weapons, the Iraq war or gender violence. She has also positioned herself in favor of the cause of the Palestinian people.
Fonda, although she is one of the best known and long-lived in activism, is not alone as a habitual candidate to enter police vans in handcuffs. She is not far behind Susan Sarandon, one of the most outspoken actresses in Hollywood today.
Anti-war has been one of the main causes of it. But she has also stood up to racism. In 1999, for example, she was arrested in the midst of a series of protests for the unarmed murder of Guinean immigrant Amadou Diallo. Recently, she has also been handcuffed in demonstrations against Donald Trump.
Another veteran fighter is Martin Sheen who, like Fonda, is identified with saying no to the Vietnam War. However, the actor has continued in the gap. In 1997, for example, he participated in a protest for the rights of California strawberry pickers, most of them of Latino origin, after which he was arrested.
The participation of these well-known faces undoubtedly helps the messages they defend to have an almost planetary reach. YES, around the world gave the photo of George Clooney arrested. Together with his father, Nick, he was protesting in 2012 at the Sudanese embassy. They accused their president, Omar al-Bashir, of causing a humanitarian crisis by blocking access to food and aid in the Nuba Mountains region, on the border with South Sudan. He was released three hours later.
The fact was widely followed by the media, which recorded how the actor calmly approached the agents and with a half smile received the shackles. “It is something immediate: we need humanitarian aid to prevent Sudan from becoming the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. Immediately," the actor cried then.
A year earlier, Daryl Hannah had been arrested for taking part in a peaceful protest in front of the White House against the construction of an oil pipeline that could harm the native flora of the United States and Canada.
