The Tourist Provocateurs

The house lights in Moscow's Operetta Theater brightened for intermission as the first act of My Fair Lady came to an end. Suddenly, in the top balcony, a bearded young man rushed to the railing and shouted: "Freedom! Civil rights!" As he flung down fistfuls of leaflets, burly female ushers elbowed into the audience below, crying: "Give them back! Don't read them!" It took five minutes for officials to free the youth, who had handcuffed himself to the railing, and hustle him out.

Such performances are threatening to become a standard feature of protest in the Soviet Union. The young demonstrator, whose leaflets demanded the release of several imprisoned Soviet dissenters, was not a Russian but a touring Belgian student from the University of Ghent. Later in the week, a young Norwegian student was arrested in Leningrad for passing out leaflets. Six days earlier, two young Italian students, Teresa Marinuzzi, 22, and Valtenio Tacchi, 23, handcuffed themselves to a railing in Moscow's downtown TSUM department store and tossed similar leaflets at astonished shoppers. The episode was almost identical with a protest staged last October at the GUM department store, for which two Scandinavian students were deported.

If Moscow is becoming a mecca for young "tourist provocateurs," as Pravda calls them, the Kremlin can blame an activist network of European student groups. Most seem politically right-wing, and they have even been called neo-fascist in some European countries. But their chief interest is in protesting violations of civil liberties. The Belgian student represented an organization called the Flemish Action Committee for Eastern Europe. Scandinavia's SMOG (a Russian acronym for Courage, Youth, Sincerity and Genius) sponsored October's GUM demonstration and the one in Leningrad last week. Both groups, and several others, are in touch with Rome's Movimento Europa Civilta, whose Eagle Scout approach to political regeneration includes weekend camping trips and karate practice in the mountains. It was Europa Civilta that sponsored the TSUM caper in Moscow.

Founder Mauro Tappella, 26, a student at the University of Rome, says that his movement, now perhaps 2,000 strong, is building a new "European soul." Apparently it can already muster surprising political strength. In a matter of hours, it persuaded 74 members of the 630-seat Chamber of Deputies to demand official efforts to free the jailed TSUM leafleteers. So far, Moscow has not obliged. The students, who stand to be charged with "hooliganism," face up to five years in jail.

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