Freed Belarus dissident missing after refusing to leave country

WARSAW (AFP): A Belarusian dissident who refused to leave his home country after being released from prison there earlier this week has gone missing, Belarus’s exiled opposition leader said Friday.

Mikola Statkevich, who ran against Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko in 2010 presidential elections, had been in jail for five years.

The 69-year-old was among 52 political prisoners freed on Thursday in a deal brokered by the United States, but unlike the other prisoners, he chose to remain in Belarus after his release, rights groups reported.

“We are very worried about the fate of Mikola Statkevich, who refused to leave Belarus,” opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya said at a press conference in Vilnius with some of the other freed prisoners.

She said his whereabouts were now “unknown,” without elaborating.

Tikhanovskaya thanked the United States for brokering the release but noted it did not mean “real freedom” for the prisoners, calling it a “forced deportation.”

Everyone who is released should have “the right to choose, either to stay or to leave. And I spoke about this yesterday with our American partners, and we are pushing on that,” she added.

Some of the prisoners who attended Friday appeared to have had their heads shaven.

Many were detained during a brutal crackdown on opposition in the wake of Lukashenko’s 2020 re-election and prosecuted on what rights groups have denounced as politically motivated charges.

Also freed was a staff member with the EU delegation in Minsk and nine journalists and bloggers, including a reporter for US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

“There is no reason why journalists and voices of political dissent should be silenced,” RFE/RL president Stephen Capus said in Vilnius.

“We appreciate your bravery and your dedication, and the struggle continues,” he told the released prisoners.

Rights groups estimate that around 1,000 political prisoners remain behind bars in Belarus.