Czechoslovakian legal experts are studying Czech laws governing travel abroad with a view to revising them, the newspaper Listy, organ of the Czech Writers Union, reported in Prague. The travel laws are of particular concern to Czech Jews who are looking forward to reunion with their families abroad, and to the thousands who left the country in the wake of the Soviet-led invasion last summer and found haven in Western lands. The expected new legislation will probably be harsher than the present rigorous laws, according to Listy.
Existing Czech law provides for jail terms of from six months to five years for illegal departure from the country, or, alternatively, loss of property and “corrective punishment.” The latter could refer to any one of many restrictions. Since 1956, most persons convicted of illegal departure have been put on probation. Government directives to the courts define illegal departure as any journey abroad not in the interests of the State. Among those could be journeys to seek employment or to study abroad or any trip to which a traveller’s employer objects.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
