Protest In Moscow

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32114, 9 October 1969, Page 11

Protest In Moscow

(N.Z P.A. -Reuter— Copyright)

MOSCOW, Oct. 7.

Two young Scandinavians were detained by the police in Moscow today after scattering leaflets in a huge :Mos c o w department store, calling for the release of a leader of ‘Moscow’s dissident intellectual community.

The two, who identified themselves as Harald Bristol, iof Oslo, Norway, and Elisaveta Lie, of Uppsala, .Sweden, handcuffed themselves to a balcony on the I first floor of the store and declared a hunger strike after scattering the leaflets, which tasked for the release of ; Major-General Peter Grigoirenko. . The leaflets bore the names lof the Norwegian, Swedish and Danish Committees of an i organisation named S.M.O.G. I The letters “5.M.0.G.” stand for the ideals pro- | claimed by the original I sponsors of the Soviet organi- ; sation: “Courage, thought, 'image and profundity.” The Soviet press has mockingly given the letters another name: “The very youngest society of geniuses.” Nothing has been heard about the organisation for nearly five years, since it was subjected to a violent attack in the Communist youth newspaper, “Komsomolskaya Pravda,__ .. The leaflets carried a printed message to the Soviet Prime Minister (Mr Alexei Kosygin) asking for the quick release of, or an| open trial for, Generali Grigorenko, who is believed] to be still in pre-trial detention in the Soviet central Asian city of Tashkent. The retired general was arrested in Tashkent in May and charged with “antiSoviet fabrications” after going there to attend the trial of a group of Crimean Tartars on similar charges.

The Tartars, who number several hundred thousand, have been dispersed all over the Soviet Union since they were deported from their Crimean homeland in 1944 for alleged collaboration with the Germans.

They were formally rehabilitated in 1966, but many of them say that they

I are still prevented from returning to the Crimea, and are being subjected to other persecutions. In the leaflets, the two Scandinavians told Soviet citizens: “To support our appeal, we refuse to leave this site of our declaration, and hereby declare a hunger strike. We shall continue this until Major-General Grigorenko is released or until Mr Kosygin gives us guarantees that Major-General Grigorenko will be granted an open and legal trial without delay.” Their demonstration was the third public protest by young foreigners in Moscow ip the past 18 months. The two S.M.O.G. members walked into the huge store

in the evening rush-hour, climbed to the circular balustrade on the first floor and, at the stroke of five, threw hundreds of leaflets down to crowds of shoppers passing a big fountain in the centre of the store.

As people grabbed the leaflets qnd stuffed them into their bandbags and pockets without reading them, Miss Lie and Mr Bristol handcuffed themselves to the balcony balustrade. Crowds of curious, sometimes angry, Russians gathered round them.

Plainclothes security men arrived on the scene and held the bystanders off while colleagues freed the Scandinavians and took them away.