Prosecutors Office Issued Second Warning to Manaeu

Today the director of Independent Institute of Social, Economic and Political Research Aleh Manaeu has received a second official warning.

It is said in the warning of the Prosecutors office: You are offered to stop dissemination of untrue information about the results of the presidential elections in 2006& Secondly, you are to stop carrying out social and political research, which violate the requirements of the law. In case you would continue dissemination of untruthful information, you will bear criminal responsibility under Article 369.

The document is signed by a deputy prosecutor of the country Mikalay Kupryjanau.

Professor Manaeu believes that the second part of the warning concerning social and political research is the most serious one.

To his mind, the prosecutors office does not have any legal grounds for that. The prosecutors office, in their turn, refer to the statement of the Council of Ministers, according to which all legal bodies that carry out surveys of the public, must have accreditation in a special commission. Professor Manaeu does not consider his team of researchers a legal body.

We are not a legal body. We are simply a group of private persons, scientists. As volunteers we carry out surveys in our spare time. And they insist on their interpretation that nobody has a right to carry out any kind of research or survey in this country. It is absurd, and it shows the states control over the society in Belarus in a new light, Manaeu said to the Radio Svaboda.
Source: www.charter97.org