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