Human rights organizations are sounding the alarm following the death of artist and political dissident Ales Pushkin, who was being held in Grodno prison in western Belarus. The 57-year-old Belarusian artist, who would have was not known to be ill, died in an intensive care unit this Monday, July 10 in what PEN America and other groups described as “unclear circumstances.”
The news was first announced by Janina Demuch, Pushkin’s wife, in a Facebook job. Reports in the Belarusian media, which have not been independently verified by Hyperallergicsay the artist died of a perforated ulcer and did not receive timely medical attention.
“Given the Belarusian authorities’ practice of isolating political prisoners, Pushkin’s death is a distressing example of how the government violates human rights with impunity,” said PEN Director Julie Trebault. America’s Artists at Risk Connection, in a statement.
Pushkin was celebrated for his highly provocative performance pieces that criticized the Belarusian state, and the authoritarian regime of Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko in particular. Among his most famous works is “Dung For The President” (1999), which involved unloading a wheelbarrow of manure in front of the presidential building in Minsk where Lukashenko resides. This performance landed him behind bars for two years, but it was far from the first time he was arrested for speaking out against the government. Pushkin was incarcerated and released from prison throughout his life, persecuted both for his artistic practice and his participation in advocacy and protest activities calling for creative freedom and freedom of expression.
The artist was arrested in 2021 after exhibiting a portrait of anti-Soviet fighter Yauhen Zhykhar with a gun slung over his shoulder. He was sentenced to five years in prison for desecration of state symbols and incitement to hatred through the “rehabilitation of Nazism”. (Jykhar is said to have collaborated with the Nazis during the occupation of Belarus in the summer of 1944, although Pushkin and his followers have underline Zhykhar’s importance to the Bolshevik resistance movements.) When the verdict was announced, Pushkin stripped off his clothes to reveal cut marks on his cross-shaped stomach; he was held in solitary confinement for two weeks.
Lukashenko, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has come out in favor of invading Ukraine and has a track record of cracking down on dissent and cracking down on independent journalism. When Lukashenko was re-elected to power in August 2020 in an election that watchdog groups characterized manipulated, the state responded with a brutal crackdown on opposition leaders and peaceful protesters. According to Viasna Human Rights Centernearly 1,500 political prisoners are in prison in Belarus, including pro-democracy activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bialiatski.
“We note that this is not the first fatal incident in places of deprivation of liberty,” Viasna said in a statement on Pushkin’s death. “Thousands of prisoners in Belarusian prisons suffer daily from poor conditions, including violation of their constitutional rights to health care. Moreover, prisoners die every year in places of deprivation of liberty due to the lack of appropriate medical assistance… This constitutes an unacceptable practice which violates human rights.
