SOVIET DISSIDENTS PUBLISH MAGAZINE TO TEST GLASNOST POLICY

DISSIDENT MAGAZINE

Moscow (JULY 3) DPA - Indirectly challenging the Kremlin to live up to Mikhail
Gorbachov's drive to reform Soviet society, a group of dissidents Friday
released the first issue of a magazine named after Gorbachov's keyword:
Glasnost, or openness.

Scheduled to appear thrice monthly, the magazine deals with the situation of
political prisoners in the Soviet Union as well as with economic and cultural
issues, the environment and law.

Glasnost's authors said they have applied with the Communist Party Central
Committee for permission to publish. Although no reply has come so far, they
said, authorities have not moved to stop the magazine from appearing.

In a foreword, they described Glasnost's existence as better proof of democracy
in the Soviet Union than could be offered in hundreds of official statements
and declarations.

The Magazine's first issue also featured the names of eight political internees
still at Chistopol Prison in early May and said it would report regularly on
the fate of prisoners of conscience and on releases.

The authors pointed out the limits of Gorbachov's glasnost campaign at a press
conference in Moscow Friday, noting that the KGB secret police remained immune
from the reform drive.

In addition, they said, groups of ethnic exiles, such as the Tartars deported
from the Crimea in 1942, were still unable to return home.