Belarus lawyer Maxim Znak, the last active member of the opposition Coordination Council, was detained by masked men on Wednesday, AFP reported quoting his colleagues.

Znak, who was expected to participate in a video call did not show up, instead sent the word “masks” to the group, a statement said. He had worked as a lawyer for jailed presidential hopeful Viktor Babaryko.

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The statement also said a witness had seen Znak, 39, being led down the street near his offices by several men in civilian clothes and wearing masks.

Along with Svetlana Alexievich, a 72-year-old Nobel Prize-winning author, Znak was the last of the seven members of the Council’s governing to remain free. Others have been detained or forced to leave Belarus, in an intensifying crackdown by President Alexander Lukashenko’s regime over a disputed election.

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In a similar move, opposition leader Maria Kolesnikova, who was forced into a van by masked men in Minsk on Monday, was said to be detained by officials on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Belarus’s leading opposition figure Svetlana Tikhanovskaya on Wednesday called on Russians not to believe propaganda trying to “poison” ties between the two peoples and thanked those backing Belarusians’ “fight for freedom.”