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WARSAW: 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.

TOKYO: Two people appeared to have sustained minor injuries after a United Airlines Flight 32 heading to Cebu in the Philippines made an emergency landing at an airport in Japan’s western city of Osaka Friday night, Kyodo news agency reported.
The Boeing 737 aircraft from Narita Airport near Tokyo made an emergency landing at Kansai International Airport after 7 p.m. local time (1000 GMT) after a cargo fire indicator activated while flying over the Pacific Ocean, public broadcaster NHK reported.
A total of 142 passengers and crew members onboard evacuated the aircraft using the emergency slides, Kyodo said.
Reuters could not reach the Kansai airport, local police and fire departments, United Airlines, the transport ministry via phone outside normal business hours.