<\/p>\n
Artist and political activist Ales Pushkin, 57, has died in prison in what his wife said were “unclear circumstances”.<\/p>\n
A Belarusian artist who once dumped manure outside the office of President Alexander Lukashenko has died in prison where he was serving a five-year sentence for his political activities, human rights activists and his wife said.<\/p>\n
Ales Pushkin, 57, died on Tuesday in a prison in Grodno, western Belarus, of unknown causes, although he was not known to have been ill, according to the human rights center Viasna.<\/p>\n
Pushkin’s wife, Janina Demuch, told The Associated Press that the artist had “died in the prison’s intensive care unit under unclear circumstances.”<\/p>\n
There was no comment from the Belarusian authorities.<\/p>\n
\ud83d\ude2dThe artist and political prisoner Ales Pushkin died in intensive care under unclear circumstances. His wife wrote about it on Facebook. \u2014 #FreeViasna (@FreeViasna) July 11, 2023<\/a><\/p>\n Pushkin was a political performer and drawing the theme was often Lukashenko, the country’s authoritarian leader. The artist painted Lukashenko in hell, surrounded by riot police, in a fresco in a church in the Belarusian city of Bobr.<\/p>\n In 1999, Pushkin was sentenced to two years for “Dung for the President”, in which he overturned a dung cart at the entrance to the presidential office in the capital, Minsk.<\/p>\n Militiamen try to remove Ales Pushkin after he brought a cartload of dung to the administration of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in Minsk in 1999. [File: VF\/WAW via Reuters]<\/p>\n Pushkin actively participated in the protests of the political opposition.<\/p>\n In March 2021 he was arrested and sentenced to five years in prison for incitement to hatred and “desecration of state symbols”. Supposedly, in one of his exhibitions, Pushkin painted a Belarusian nationalist, a member of the post-war anti-Soviet resistance, who had collaborated with the Nazis during World War II.<\/p>\n At the sentencing hearing, Pushkin stripped in protest, for which he was placed in solitary confinement for 13 days.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Belarus was gripped by massive protests when Lukashenko was re-elected in August 2020 in a vote that the opposition and the West denounced as a sham.<\/p>\n The authorities responded with a brutal crackdown that led to the arrest of more than 35,000 people, police beatings and the closure of many non-governmental organizations and independent media.<\/p>\n According to Viasna, Belarus has imprisoned nearly 1,500 political prisoners, including Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bialiatski.<\/p>\n Exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya said Belarus has lost one of its “most talented” and “brave sons” with the death of Pushkin, who “died a political prisoner of the regime”, from for which Lukashenko and “his colleagues” assumed responsibility.<\/p>\n “Ales used his art to fight for freedom and build a new Belarus without tyranny. He dreamed of a free and democratic Belarus. Now we must continue his work and make his dream come true,” Tsikhanouskaya wrote on Twitter.<\/p>\n “Dictators fear artists,” he said.<\/p>\n Belarus has lost one of its most talented and fearless sons. Ales Pushkin was the embodiment of the indomitable spirit of the Belarusian people. He died as a political prisoner of the regime and the responsibility lies with his jailer, Lukashenka and his comrades. <\/p>\n Ales used his art to\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/lIRaQ0taI4<\/a><\/p>\n
He had been a friend of the head of Viasna Ales Bialiatski for many years. pic.twitter.com\/jziNJcHGBh<\/a><\/p>\n