The arrest came after the 'Grace and Frankie' star launched her 'Fire Drill Fridays' civil disobedience campaign.
Jane Fonda was arrested in Washington, D.C., on Friday for protesting climate change.
The arrest came after the Grace and Frankie star launched her "Fire Drill Fridays" civil disobedience campaign, demanding urgent action to battle climate change.
"She will be joined at every 'Fire Drill Friday' through at least mid-January by celebrities, scientists, economists and people from impacted communities who will speak and some of whom will invite arrest," a press release sent out early Friday stated. "Inspired by the growing movement of young climate strikers, Fonda decided to move to the nation's capital for four months to take up their baton."
"Change is coming by design or by disaster," Fonda added. "A Green New Deal that transitions off fossil fuels provides the design. They say it’s not realistic, that it’s Socialism. That's what they said about Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, and we got Social Security and a middle class."
U.S. Capitol Police also released the following statement to ET in regards to Fonda's arrest:
Today, the United States Capitol Police arrested 16 individuals for unlawfully demonstrating on the East Front of the U.S. Capitol. All were charged with D.C. Code §22-1307, Crowding, Obstructing or Incommoding.
According to Mike Valerio, a local White House reporter with CBS station WUSA who was on site, Fonda was planning to be arrested while protesting climate change political paralysis on Capitol Hill. "She tells us she'll be here *every* Friday into 2020 — demonstrate, get arrested, repeat," he tweeted.
Fonda echoed those statements in an interview with The Washington Post, saying, "I'm going to take my body, which is kind of famous and popular right now because of the [television] series, and I'm going to go to D.C. and I'm going to have a rally every Friday."
"It'll be called 'Fire Drill Friday.' And we're going to engage in civil disobedience and we’re going to get arrested every Friday," she continued. "It’s as simple as this. We have according to the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] 12 years, but that was a year ago. So according to their report we have 11 years left. Eleven years to do something that has never been done in human history. And if we don’t do it, huge parts of the planet are going to be uninhabitable, by the way."
This isn't the first time Fonda has been arrested, however. Many may recall her 1970 arrest, which happened when the actress was on a speaking tour for an anti-Vietnam War campaign. When she flew into Cleveland, Ohio, from Canada, airport security reportedly searched her luggage and found multiple bags of vitamins that they assumed were drugs. Fonda was then arrested for drug smuggling until the vitamins were tested, she was then released and charges were dropped.
Fonda's epic mugshot, of her holding her fist up as a sign of resistance, has become legendary in its own right.
Hear more in the video below.
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