A bunch of crap and Lukashenko’s portrait on top – with a courageous performance in 1999, Ales Pushkin made himself unpopular with the Belarusian dictator. 24 years later, the artist suddenly dies behind bars – “under unclear circumstances”, as it is often said in such cases.
Another political prisoner has died behind bars in Belarus. The artist Ales Pushkin died in the intensive care unit during the night “under unclear circumstances”, his wife said on Facebook. According to a report by Radio Liberty, the 57-year-old was taken from prison to a hospital in Grodno the day before.
Pushkin was serving a prison sentence in the big city in the west of the country, to which he had been sentenced in March 2022. The artist was arrested in March 2021 for a series of portraits of anti-Soviet WWII underground fighters that he painted more than 20 years ago. Pushkin was sentenced to five years in a maximum security prison for “rehabilitating National Socialism”. During a court hearing, Pushkin tried to cut open his stomach in protest. For this he was transferred to a punishment cell for 13 days.
In the colony, the artist was harassed by prison staff because he was “a creative person, not from this world,” Radio Liberty reported, citing Pushkin’s fellow inmates. In addition, Pushkin only spoke Belarusian, “he didn’t want to speak Russian with the guards, they didn’t like it.” In June, the artist’s wife said she had not received any letters from her husband for a month and a half.
“Crap for the President”
Ales Pushkin was an artist famous in Belarus. He has been arrested several times in the past for his participation in protests against the dictator Alexander Lukashenko. In 1999 Pushkin achieved national fame with his art campaign “A gift for the President – for five years of fruitful work”. On the fifth anniversary of Lukashenko’s rule, he emptied a wheelbarrow full of manure in front of the Presidential Administration building in Minsk. On it he put several banknotes, the Belarusian constitution and a portrait of Lukashenko. Finally, Pushkin pierced the whole thing with a pitchfork.
With his “gift to the president” Pushkin became nationally known.
(Photo: REUTERS)
The artist was sentenced to two years’ probation for the action. In 2021, Pushkin repeated the performance in a Kiev gallery.
As recently as May, a man imprisoned for a Lukashenko caricature died in prison, also “under unclear circumstances,” according to the authorities. The 61-year-old Nikolai Klimowitsch was sentenced in February to a year in prison for “insulting the president”, although he suffered from severe heart failure. A year earlier, the imprisoned opposition activist Witold Ashurok died in prison at the age of 50 – again “under unclear circumstances”. According to media reports, the family and relatives of the political prisoner are convinced that his death was violent. To date, no investigation has been launched into the case.
Where is Viktor Babariko?
For years, opposition figures and human rights organizations have drawn attention to the inhumane conditions under which political prisoners are kept in Belarusian prisons. Torture and psychological pressure are reported. They were beaten, restricted in communication and correspondence, regularly sent to isolation cells, according to reports.
At the end of April it became known that Viktor Babariko, Lukashenko’s challenger in the 2020 presidential election, was taken from prison to the hospital with traces of beatings. Authorities declined to comment on the situation. Nothing has been known about the politician’s health and whereabouts for more than two months.