Artist who dumped manure at Belarusian president’s office dies in prison, wife says

By YURAS KARMANAU
Associated Press Writer

TALLINN, ESTONIA (AP) — A Belarusian artist who dumped manure outside an office of President Alexander Lukashenko has died in a prison, where he was serving a five-year sentence. The Viasna human rights center says Ales Pushkin, who was 57, died in a prison in Grodno in western Belarus of an unknown cause even though he wasn’t known to be sick. His wife tells The Associated Press he “died in the intensive care unit of the prison under unclear circumstances.” Belarusian authorities did not comment. Pushkin was a political performer and cartoonist whose subject was often Lukashenko, the country’s authoritarian leader. The artist painted Lukashenko in hell, surrounded by riot police, on a fresco in a church.