Events

About the Speaker

Dr. Oleg Manaev is a founder and director of the Independent Institute of Socio-Economic & Political Studies in Belarus. He founded and chaired the Belarusian Think Tanks - non-government and non-profit national association which unites sixteen leading independent research and analytical centres. Dr. Manaev is also Professor in the Department of Social Communication at the Belarusian State University founded as a result of TEMPUS project led by him. He has edited and contributed to fifteen books and published over one hundred fifty scholarly articles on media, democracy and civil society, as well as numerous publications in mass media.

After IISEPS assisted The Gallup Organization/Baltic Surveys in conducting exit polls during a national referendum in October 2004 which revealed a huge gap between official and real results, Dr. Manaev and his team faced massive pressure from the Belarusian authorities including official warnings from the Ministry of Justice, personal talks with Minister of Justice and the General Prosecutor Officer, visits of local police and a night search conducted by KGB in the Institute�s office, and trail at the Supreme Court. After IISEPS was shut down by the Supreme Court in 2005, Dr. Manaev was given two official warnings from the General Prosecutor Office. He was warned that "in [the] case of continuing dissemination of unconfirmed information as well as [the] conducting of social-political surveys... you will be accused according to the... Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus".

However, despite all these challenges IISEPS was re-registered in Vilnius, Lithuania, and continues its mission in Belarus as a group of private scholars.

Wine & Central European snacks will be served