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Russia: Activist campaigning against ‘police state’ arrested after stapling testicles to cobblestone

Nov 11 2013
Written by Aaron Day

A man in Moscow was arrested and hospitalised recently after he stripped naked and stapled his testicles to a cobblestone pavement, in protest of what he called Russia’s recent descent into a “police state” which follows the passage of anti-gay laws.

The Huffington Post reports Pyotr Pavlensky, a performance artist, carried out the act near Lenin’s mausoleum in the centre of Moscow’s Red Square.

According to Agence France-Presse, the 29-year-old, arrested shortly after the incident, had carried out similar acts in the past, including sewing his lips together against the jailing of two members of Pussy Riot, and wrapping his body in barbed wire outside a government building.

In his latest performance, he attacked Russia’s “police state.”

This comes after President Vladimir Putin signed a law in June banning the promotion of “non-traditional relationships” toward minors, a move that has been criticised as part of a broader crackdown on Russia’s gay community.

Later that same month, dozens of gay rights demonstrators were arrested St Petersburg after attempting to hold a gay pride rally.

The first person to be convicted under Russia’s “propaganda” law was attacked and arrested by his own parents at a solo campaign in July.