Tight Soviet law on citizenship

Press, 4 December 1978, Page 9

Tight Soviet law on citizenship

NZPA-Reuter Moscow The Soviet Union has introduced a new law on citizenship, obliging all its 260 million subjects to be loyal to the State. The new law, passed by the Supreme Soviet spells out for the first time the actions for which citizenship could be taken away, a penalty sometimes used against dissidents.

From July 1, next year, when the law comes into force, Soviet citizens will be bound to observe the constitution and laws of the Soviet Union and “be worthy bearers of the high title of a Soviet citizen.”

They will have to "safeguard the interests of the Soviet State, facilitate the strengthening of its power and authority, and be true to their socialist motherland.” The old citizenship law, passed on August 19, 1938, included no clause on these lines. The new law comes after the adoption last year of a new Soviet constitution that emphasises the close link between the rights and freedoms of citizens and their obligations.

The new law says the Presidium of the Supreme

Soviet can remove the citizenship of those who have “committed acts which have discredited the high title of a citizen of the U.S.S.R. and have harmed the prestige or the State security of the U.S.S.R.”

Under the old law the Presidium, led by Head of State, Mr Leonid Brezhnev, could take away citizenship but the grounds for doing so were not spelt out. A number of prominent figures living abroad have had their citizenship taken away, including the cellist, Mstislav Rostropovich, and his wife, Galina Vishnevskaya. The measure, which effectively bars for life a return to the Soviet Union, has been used against dissidents or people regarded as politicallv undesirable such as General Pyotr Grigorenko, now in the United States; the scientist, Zhores Medvedev, who lives in London; and the philosopher and novelist, Alexander Zinoviev, who is in West Germany. It was not immediately clear whether the new law meant a change in policy or merely reinforced ' the existing situation.