More Arrests in Yugoslavia

When Mihajlo Mihajlov was arrested and sentenced to a year in jail for trying to put out a magazine in opposition to the Yugoslav regime, his youthful colleagues vowed to carry on without him.

They did not carry on for long. In simultaneous arrests last week in Zadar, Zagreb and Belgrade, the Yugoslav police picked up all five of the magazine's remaining editors and charged them with conspiracy and spreading propaganda hostile to the state. They may face an even harsher sentence than Mihajlov's; and their arrest suggests that his last-ditch appeal to the Yugoslav high court is a hopeless effort.

By this latest act of repression, Tito has made clear his determination to stamp out the opposition magazine before it even gets started. Freedom of the press remains a sometime thing in Yugoslavia. Publications are free to print crime stories and cheesecake; they are less free to criticize the regime, and they are not at all free to criticize Tito.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.