Artist Pushkin fined for celebration BNR anniversary under national and European flags (Photo)
- 7.05.2008, 17:06
A warning and fine of 25 basic unit (875 000 rubles) was a judgement delivered by the Krupki district court to artist Ales Pushkin.
The painter and performer from Bobr village (the Krupki district, the Minsk region) agreed with all testimonies but didn’t confess his guilt. He got warning for unauthorised picket and fine allegedly for disobedience to militia, Radio Svaboda reports.
The trial lasted for 20 minutes. Besides Ales Pushkin, his wife Yanina and little kids 1.5-year Marylka and 4-year Mikola were present in the courtroom.
On 27 March Ales Pushkin together with his wife and kids installed an easel in the Bobr center, laid a pie with text “90 years of BNR” (Belarusian National Republic) on the easel and entertained his village mates. “Only the letter ‘R’ remained,” Ales Pushkin told. The easel was decorated with birdhouses, national court-of-arms “Pahonya” and flags: a national white-red-white and EU ones. A militiaman defined a white-red-white flag in his testimony as “former state flag.”
Ales Pushkin is known for his political public performances. His most famous performance took place ahead of the presidential election 2001 when Ales Pushkin turned over a wheelbarrow full of dung in front of the presidential residence and threw official red-green flag to a trash bin. Ales Pushkin had a criminal trial and got two years of suspended sentence for “hooliganism committed with special cynicism.”
On 3 May Ales Pushkin requested that the flags and “Pahonya” court-of-arms should be returned to him. He says they are art objects, and the court-of-arms is a work of Ales Pushkin’s authorship. The judge phoned to a militia department, situated across the street. Militiamen promised to return the property, but later, they referred to absence of their commanders: they said they would settle the problem within a week.
