Artist nails testicles to the ground in protest

A Russian performance artist was hospitalised after stripping naked and nailing his testicles to a Red Square cobblestone in protest against the Kremlin’s crackdown on political rights.

A video on Russian websites showed artist Pyotr Pavlensky sitting naked outside Lenin’s Mausoleum being covered with a blanket by police officers while horrified passersby looked on.

The state-run RIA Novosti news agency said Pavlensky was taken to a police station after being treated in a central Moscow clinic.

The Saint Petersburg-based artist said in a statement posted on the Grani.ru website that he was trying to draw attention to Russian society’s inaction in the face of the development of a “police state“.

This not the first time the 29-year-old has resorted to eye-watering methods of protest. Pavlensky has previously sewn his lips together to demonstrate against the jailing of two female members of the Pussy Riot punk band who staged an anti-Kremlin performance inside Moscow’s main cathedral in 2011.