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Yugoslavia Censorship
The print and broadcast media were nominally free of
censorship in the 1980s, but printed material was reviewed by
official publication boards that ensured party control. Those
boards were able to stop publication of some new radical
periodicals, but in 1985 their ban of Mladina was
overruled by the Supreme Court of Slovenia. Only post-publication
censorship was exercised for periodicals, and individual banned
issues circulated widely in spite of the system. Over a dozen
Croatian magazines and student newspapers were banned because of
anti-Serbian positions in the late 1980s. Late in the 1980s, book
censorship was loosened and cases of official interference
decreased. The list of taboo topics for books was similar to that
for periodicals. Foreign dissident writings were widely
available, as were the writings of Milovan Djilas, which still
were banned officially in 1990.
For the first time in 1990, political opposition parties
received permission to televise their views prior to an election.
Slovenian and Croatian self-managed television enterprises
reserved air time for all parties participating in elections for
the republican assemblies. The stations observed strict equality
of time allotment. Commercial purchase of additional time was
forbidden, to avoid giving richer parties disproportionate access
to the viewing public.
Data as of December 1990
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