Soviet Free-Press Law in Effect
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MOSCOW — The first press-freedom law went into effect in the Soviet Union today, guaranteeing broad rights for journalists and potential publishers.
The law, unanimously approved by the Supreme Soviet legislature in June after months of debate, promises: “The press and other mass media are free,” and “censorship of the mass media is forbidden.”
Censorship by the Communist Party and the government kept the Soviet media under tight control before President Mikhail S. Gorbachev came to power in 1985. Political pressure on the media began to lighten under Gorbachev’s policy of glasnost, or openness, but until now they still lacked legal protection from interference.
Soviet journalists’ new freedoms include the right to attend meetings and be present at the scene of disasters, the right to refuse to prepare reports that are against a journalist’s convictions and the right to hold interviews with officials.
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