The organization Mr. Bialiatski founded, Viasna, tracks the conditions of political prisoners in Belarus, population 9.5 million. After he was freed last Saturday along with 122 other prisoners, it determined that 1,103 were still languishing in jail.
Mr. Bialiatski’s release came about after an envoy for President Trump met Belarus’s president, Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, and announced that the United States would lift sanctions on potash fertilizer, one of Belarus’s largest sources of cash. Also released were Maria Kolesnikova and Viktor Babariko, two of Belarus’s top opposition leaders.
Mr. Bialiatski, 63, expressed profuse gratitude for his freedom, but said he felt he had been “trafficked” as part of a transaction — released only when there was economic gain for Belarus.
“They just loaded me like a sack of flour and transported me across the border,” he said. “We are basically goods for sale.”