Three Years Ago, Political Prisoner Ales Pushkin Died

We will not forget, we will not forgive.

Today marks exactly three years since the death of political prisoner, the well-known Belarusian artist Ales Pushkin. On July 11, 2023, he died of a perforated ulcer in the intensive care unit, where he had been transferred from a prison in Grodno. He did not receive timely medical care.

Ales Pushkin was arrested in 2021 while returning from Ukraine to Belarus for his exhibition. The Belarusian artist was sentenced to five years in a maximum-security prison for a series of portraits of members of the Belarusian anti-Soviet resistance.

The Belarusian artist was known for his performances. On March 25, 1989, the artist walked down Independence Avenue. He wore posters on his back and chest commemorating the Belarusian People’s Republic (BNR), which had been proclaimed on that very day exactly 71 years earlier, while about a hundred of Pushkin’s like-minded supporters followed him, carrying a paper stork and 71 white balloons.

Ales Pushkin staged his most famous performance—*“Manure for the President”*—in July 1999, on the fifth anniversary of Alexander Lukashenko’s rule. At his farmstead in Bobra, the artist loaded an old wheelbarrow with manure, placed a poster reading “Alexander Lukashenko with the People” on top, along with a sign reading “For Five Years of Work,” a thousand denominated rubles, handcuffs, and the constitution with the 1996 amendments that expanded the president’s powers. After covering the wheelbarrow with cellophane, he headed to downtown Minsk by minibus. The artist told the driver that he was transporting props to the Yanka Kupala Theater, which is located next to Lukashenko’s administration building.

When he rolled the wheelbarrow up to the main entrance of the administration building, a police officer ran out of the building: “What are you doing?!” The performer then tipped the wheelbarrow onto the pavement, placed a portrait of Lukashenko on top, and pierced it with a pitchfork.

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