Ben Cohen, the co-founder of Ben & Jerry's, was taken into custody by Department of Homeland Security officers on Thursday for obstructing the entrance to the Department of Justice building in Washington, D.C. Cohen was participating in a demonstration against the imprisonment of Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder currently held in London facing potential extradition to the United States.

Photographs from the protest depict Cohen seated beside a demonstrator holding a sign advocating for Assange's release, surrounded by law enforcement and security personnel. Subsequent images released by the Associated Press captured Cohen being escorted away in handcuffs by DHS officers.

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)

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)

Following the incident, Cohen, who has transitioned from ice cream entrepreneur to political activist, clarified that his participation in the protest was unrelated to recent controversies surrounding Ben & Jerry's stance on Israel and the Palestinian territories, or the company's statements regarding U.S. land ownership.

During the demonstration, Cohen voiced his concerns about Assange's detainment, stating, according to left-wing activist group CODEPINK, "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 why we need to do whatever we can to help him and to help preserve democracy, which is based on freedom of the press."

This isn't Cohen's first encounter with law enforcement during a protest. In 2018, he was arrested for disorderly conduct in Vermont while protesting noise pollution from Vermont Air National Guard jets.