Human rights activists are demanding that Belarusian authorities reveal what has happened to the 69-year-old opposition politician and former presidential candidate. FILE - Veteran Belarusian opposition activist Mikalai Statkevich is seen at a protest in Minsk, Belarus, on Sept. 8, 2017. Trading political prisoners ‘like commodities’“Lukashenko is trading political prisoners like commodities, releasing some and imprisoning other activists in their place,” opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya told AP. According to Viasna, about 1,200 political prisoners, including its founder, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski, remain in custody. He was among Belarusian opposition leaders awarded the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.