As Feyisa Lilesa of Ethiopia crossed the finish line in his silver-medal marathon run at the Rio Olympics on Sunday, he raised his arms and crossed them in an X, a gesture of protest against his country’s government that he said could get him killed if he returned home.

He is uncertain where he will go next, and what will become of his wife and two children in Ethiopia.

“If I go back to Ethiopia, maybe they will kill me,” he said at a news conference after the race, according to The Sydney Morning Herald. “If I am not killed, maybe they will put me in prison.”

Ethiopia’s communications minister, Getachew Reda, told CNN that Mr. Lilesa “shouldn’t at all be worried” to return, calling him an “Ethiopian hero.”