Juha Lepisto opened the door of his Moscow apartment to two militiamen at midnight on Oct. 8. He says they walked in and, without speaking, beat him for 15 minutes, one with his fists and the other with a truncheon.


The bruises on Lepisto's face the next day seemed to back him up on them. He said that a neighbor had complatued about his guitar playing at 10 P. M. and that he stopped immediately, but the police came anyway.


Did he have to open the door?


A British journalist was wakened in the morning a week ago to find policemen in his apartment. They got him out of bed, forced him to dress and took him down to the police station for two-and-a-half hours of questioning. When the journalist asked whether he was under arrest, they told him that he was not but that he did have to go with them.


Did he have to? Did he have a right to a phone call, or a lawyer?


In fact, what rights does anybody have, whether Russian or foreign, when approached by the police here?


The answer is complicated, but Russia certainly does have rules restricting the police that apply equally to Russians and foreigners.


"In principle these rights are much the same as in the West", said Sergei Zurabov, a criminal lawyer at Moscow's Law Consultation Office No. 4. "The problem is that the government never used to follow them".


Things have changed now, somewhat, and defense lawyers in Russia are beginning to challenge the police in court.


First of all, you are not obliged to let the police into your apartment without a warrant, according to Zubarov.


Unless a policeman has reason to believe that a serious crime is being committed inside, or he is invited by a wife who claims that her husband is beating him, he must have a warrant in order to enter.


That means that Lepisto was not obliged by law to open his door that night. He could have demanded to see a warrant.


The police are entitled to detain you if you are a witness to a crime, or if they have any reason to believe you might have committed a crime, or if you attempt to flee. In practice that means that if a militiaman asks you to go with him, you must.


There is no legal right to make a phone call. The authorities are required to inform your embassy that one of their citizens is being held, but they do not have to let you make a call.


Once detained, you can be held up to 72 hours without being charged.


This period can be extended to 10 days by the prosecutor on the case if he thinks he needs more time.


A new law of May 23 this year states that anyone charged with a crime is entitled to appeal the prosecutor's decision in court. The prosecutor must pass the appeal on to the court within 24 hours and the court has a further day to decide whether the prosecutor has sufficient evidence to justify the arrest. If not, the person charged must be released immediately


"This was an extremely important change in the law", said Zubarov. "It means that for the first time a person cannot be arrested without reason".


The new law also guarantees your right to a defense lawyer from the moment of your detention. Before May, Zubarov said, defense lawyers could get involved in the case only after the prosecutor had completed his investigation and was ready to go to trial.


This might have ended the journalist's interrogation earlier. He was


asked how much he paid for his apartment, why he came to Russia, why he was not living in a hotel and if he was paying so much for his flat, why he should not give the police a similar amount of dollars.


"They were rude", said the journalist, who preferred not to be named. "One of them waved his truncheon around".


Though the police will not read you your rights Kojak-style, you do have the right to remain silent. and if you do not know of a lawyer to ask for, the police are obliged to provide one at the expense of the state.


According to several embassies, they rarely have cases in which their citizens are abused by the Russian police.


"We have cases of muggers going into hotel rooms and beating people up, but I cannot remember any cases of trouble with the police", said one consul.


Lepisto, a 27-year-old Finnish student who has lived in Moscow for five years, was a very rare case, a Finnish Embassy official said.


At the end of the beating, Lepisto said, the militiamen put a gun to his head and warned him not to disturb neighbors with his guitar playing again.


Zubarov said that the policemen could be jailed for up to 10 years under a 1982 law if Lepisto's story was true.


"This is very serious and he should go to court", Zubarov said. Neither Lepisto, nor the journalist went to their embassies, which was a mistake.


"We can kick up quite a fuss and the Foreign Ministry is responsive", said the consul. "Besides, we want to know if there is a pattern developing".