Ben & Jerry's founder arrested by DHS while protesting outside Justice Department

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Ben and Jerry's founder Ben Cohen was arrested Thursday by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) police for blocking the entrance to the Department of Justice (DOJ) building in Washington, D.C., where he was protesting the detainment of Julian Assange.

Assange is currently imprisoned at Belmarsh Prison in London and may soon be extradited to the U.S.

Images from the scene showed Cohen sitting next to a woman holding a "free Assange" sign as police and security personnel stood nearby. Later images posted by the Associated Press showed Cohen being lead away in handcuffs by DHS officers.

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Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, is arrested outside the Department of Justice July 6, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Fox News Digital reached out to the DHS for comment but did not receive a response.

Cohen, an ice cream mogul turned political activist, said after being spotted at the DOJ that his presence had nothing to do with Ben and Jerry's recent controversies regarding Israel and the Palestinian territories nor recent statements regarding the U.S. existing on "stolen" land.

"It’s outrageous. Julian Assange is nonviolent. He is presumed innocent. And yet somehow or other, he has been imprisoned in solitary confinement for four years. That is torture. He revealed the truth, and for that, he is suffering, and that’s we need to do whatever we can to help him and to help preserve democracy, which is based on freedom of the press," Cohen said during the demonstration according to CODEPINK, a left-wing activist organization. 

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As a pink smoke bomb clouds the air, Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, refuses to leave an entrance outside the Department of Justice before being arrested July 6, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Cohen was previously arrested for disorderly conduct at another protest in Vermont in 2018, that time for speaking out against jet noise from Vermont Air National Guard jets.

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.