2 men get prison for slain sheep 'performance' at Auschwitz
Source: Associated Press
Vanessa Gera, Associated Press Updated 9:14 am CDT, Tuesday, May 28, 2019
WARSAW, Poland (AP) On a cold day in March 2017, a group of young adults stripped naked at the former Auschwitz death camp and chained themselves together to the "Arbeit Macht Frei" gate as one man plunged a knife into a sheep's body over and over again.
The two organizers of the stunt, including the man who killed the sheep, described their act as an "artistic performance" to protest the wars in Ukraine and Syria. But Polish judges have taken a different view, seeing animal cruelty and the desecration of a memorial site where Nazi German forces killed some 1.1 million people.
The District Court in Krakow confirmed on Tuesday that the man who killed the sheep, Adam Bialiatski, was sentenced a week ago to a year in prison, while a second man, Mikita Valadzko, was given eight months. Nine other participants were ordered to pay fines. The May 21 ruling came after the two appealed earlier convictions, and is final.
Bialiatski is the son of human rights activist, Ales Bialiatski, who has been jailed for promoting democracy in autocratic Belarus. He has refused to comment on his son's case, while the son has avoided questions about how his father felt about his provocative brand of activism.
Read more: https://www.chron.com/news/crime/article/2-men-get-prison-for-Auschwitz-slain-sheep-protest-13900228.php