Golden Globes Award winners Joaquin Phoenix and Martin Sheen were among the activists arrested at the Jane Fonda-led weekly climate protest in DC, which is called Fire Drill Fridays. According to CNN, 147 people were arrested in Friday's protest. Those arrested were charged with crowding, obstructing or incommoding, and then released, a spokesperson for the US Capitol Police department told CNN.
Right before the arrest Martin Sheen took to stage to give an emotional speech in which he quoted Rabindranath Tagore, ‘Let my country awake’.
‘Let My Country Awake’
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action –
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
This poem by Rabindranath Tagore was published in 1910.
This is the 14th week of Fonda's climate crisis protests in DC. This week's protest focused on major banks and investors that finance the expansion of the fossil fuel industry. It's also the last protest for the time being, as Fonda will be returning to Los Angeles.
(Source: CNN)
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