Belarusian Dissident Artist Ales Pushkin Mysteriously Dies in Prison
Belarusian Dissident Artist Ales Pushkin Mysteriously Dies in Prison.
Ales Pushkin, a dissident artist in Belarus whose incendiary work often took aim at the country’s authoritarian leader, Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, in one instance with a pile of manure dumped outside the presidential offices in Minsk, has died in prison while serving a five-year sentence. He was 57.
His wife, Janina Demuch, announced his death in a Facebook post on the morning of July 11, writing, “Tonight Ales Pushkin died in intensive care under unknown circumstances” in a prison in Grodno, in western Belarus.
The Belarusian authorities did not immediately comment on his death. Some news organizations reported that Mr. Pushkin had not been known to be ill, although the opposition Belarusian news site Most, based in Bialystok, Poland, cited an unnamed source saying that Mr. Pushkin had a perforated ulcer that had gone untreated and that he had been taken to the prison hospital unconscious.
He had been arrested in 2021 for a painting he made in 2012, depicting an anti-Soviet resistance fighter, which the government said was aimed at the “rehabilitation and justification of Nazism.”
Mr. Pushkin “died as a political prisoner of the regime & the responsibility lies with his jailer, Lukashenko & his cronies,” the exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya wrote on Twitter.
“Dictators fear artists,” she added. “Why? Because they have the power to express thoughts & ideas that challenge the regime’s lies.”
The artist had long been a thorn in Mr. Lukashenko’s side.
The president, an ally of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in the war against Ukraine, was first elected in 1994. Since he was re-elected in a hotly disputed election three years ago, he has orchestrated a brutal crackdown on dissent, rounding up opposition figures, journalists, lawyers, social media critics and even people who may have insulted Mr. Lukashenko in private conversations that were overheard and reported.
Thousands of political prisoners have been detained, according to the human rights group Viasna, including Ales Bialiatski, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in October.
Mr. Pushkin was arrested multiple times over the years for acts of protest against the authorities, including through performance art pieces, which cheekily incorporated the legal process. “The police and the judge who administers the fine become part of the performance,” he once said.
In 1996, he created a national scandal with a giant mural he painted on the walls of an Orthodox church in his native village, Bobr. It portrayed judgment day, with Christ flanked on the right by the righteous and on the left by sinners condemned to hell. Among the damned were figures that resembled Mr. Lukashenko and other government figures. Offending portions of the painting were soon painted over.
Mr. Pushkin narrowly escaped time behind bars with his howitzer-subtle performance piece “A Gi
Ales Pushkin, a dissident artist in Belarus whose incendiary work often took aim at the country’s authoritarian leader, Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, in one instance with a pile of manure dumped outside the presidential offices in Minsk, has died in prison while serving a five-year sentence. He was 57.
His wife, Janina Demuch, announced his death in a Facebook post on the morning of July 11, writing, “Tonight Ales Pushkin died in intensive care under unknown circumstances” in a prison in Grodno, in western Belarus.
The Belarusian authorities did not immediately comment on his death. Some news organizations reported that Mr. Pushkin had not been known to be ill, although the opposition Belarusian news site Most, based in Bialystok, Poland, cited an unnamed source saying that Mr. Pushkin had a perforated ulcer that had gone untreated and that he had been taken to the prison hospital unconscious.
He had been arrested in 2021 for a painting he made in 2012, depicting an anti-Soviet resistance fighter, which the government said was aimed at the “rehabilitation and justification of Nazism.”
Mr. Pushkin “died as a political prisoner of the regime & the responsibility lies with his jailer, Lukashenko & his cronies,” the exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya wrote on Twitter.
“Dictators fear artists,” she added. “Why? Because they have the power to express thoughts & ideas that challenge the regime’s lies.”
The artist had long been a thorn in Mr. Lukashenko’s side.
The president, an ally of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in the war against Ukraine, was first elected in 1994. Since he was re-elected in a hotly disputed election three years ago, he has orchestrated a brutal crackdown on dissent, rounding up opposition figures, journalists, lawyers, social media critics and even people who may have insulted Mr. Lukashenko in private conversations that were overheard and reported.
Thousands of political prisoners have been detained, according to the human rights group Viasna, including Ales Bialiatski, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in October.
Mr. Pushkin was arrested multiple times over the years for acts of protest against the authorities, including through performance art pieces, which cheekily incorporated the legal process. “The police and the judge who administers the fine become part of the performance,” he once said.
In 1996, he created a national scandal with a giant mural he painted on the walls of an Orthodox church in his native village, Bobr. It portrayed judgment day, with Christ flanked on the right by the righteous and on the left by sinners condemned to hell. Among the damned were figures that resembled Mr. Lukashenko and other government figures. Offending portions of the painting were soon painted over.
Mr. Pushkin narrowly escaped time behind bars with his howitzer-subtle performance piece “A Gi