Russian Artist Cuts Off Earlobe in Government Protest

Less than a year after nailing his scrotum to the cobblestones of Red Square, a Russian artist cut off his earlobe Sunday in protest of the Russian government’s treatment of dissidents.

The artist, Pyotr Pavlensky, was hospitalized following the incident and will be released from the hospital soon, The Guardian reported.

In a Facebook post, Pavlensky said that he was protesting the government’s alleged detention of dissidents under the false pretense of insanity.

“Armed with psychiatric diagnoses, the bureaucrat in a white lab coat cuts off from society those pieces that prevent him from establishing a monolithic dictate of a single, mandatory norm for everyone,” he wrote, according to the Guardian.

[Guardian]