We offer to your attention the next issue of InfoFocus bulletin. The "Topic of Month" is this time refusal of the state-run unitary organization Belarusian Post Service to distribute by subscription many leading non-state editions. These are mostly the editions which were very popular in their fields and whose readership surpassed that one of the state-run press. At the same time, not all of these newspapers expressed their sympathy with the opposition and not all published political articles. Many people associate current discrimination of independent mass media with the coming presidential election of 2006. This also makes them doubt that the election will comply with the commitments given to OSCE. Will this influence recognition of the election results in this regards? On this issue, we offer you the opinion of A. Starikevich, Editor-In-Chief of Salidarnast newspaper. Unfortunately, state experts declined to express their viewpoints on this.
N. Cherginets has been recognized the Person of Month. First of all, N. Cherginets, Chairman of the Parliament's Permanent Commission for International Affairs and State Security, held the press conference November 9 during which he mentioned that the USA obstructed his participation as an official member of the Belarusian delegation in the UN General Assembly. US Embassy publicized a counter version of the precedent. In this regards, there's a question if N. Cherginets suffered for his political standpoint or this is his last year US visa violation which generated visa problems now? Second, N. Cherginets headed the new Belarusian Union of Writers formed by the authorities to oppose the old Union blamed for its pro-opposition position. Why him? We asked these questions to our experts S. Kostyan, Deputy Chairman of the Parliamentary Commission for international affairs and CIS, former Director General of the Literature and Art Publishing Association and Chairman of the Belarusian Slav Committee, and to L. Borschevsky, former Chairman of the Belarusian PEN-Center, poet, translator and critic.
This time the column "Document of Month" introduces readers to the Regulation of the Cabinet No. 1240 of November 8, 2005 "On conduction of opinion polls surveying attitude to referenda, elections and social and political situation in the country and consequent publication of polling results in the mass media." Many observers interpret appearance of such a law as an attempt of the authorities to take independent sociological surveys in Belarus under their total control. Yet, officials claim that the Regulation aims at "barring phoneys and smatters from such surveys." How will the Regulation be implemented and how will it affect independent sociological surveys in Belarus? You are welcome to see the comments of the IISEPS and Associate Prof. O. Abramova, PhD, Deputy of the House of Representatives.
In the column "Organization of Month" we should like to congratulate our colleagues from the Belarusian Helsinki Committee with their tenth anniversary. M. Grib, Committee's former Chairman of Supervisory Department and former Chairman of the XIIth Parliament of Belarus, is talking about what changed when the Helsinki Committee was formed in Belarus and comments on the situation around human rights protection in modern Belarus. Once again, none of public sector experts agreed to publicize their standpoints on the issue.
Our column "IISEPS Desktop" offers to your attention materials reflecting the most interesting results of the nation opinion poll conducted in September of 2005.
We hope you will find these materials helpful and interesting. All your feedbacks are mostly welcome!

IISEPS executive board

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