[JURIST] Russian police Saturday briefly detained five foreign activists in Nizhny Novgorod on charges of violating the terms of their Russian travel visas. The activists were detained for approximately four and a half hours, and were ordered to pay a $120 fine. The five, including Neil Hicks, a British citizen and a director of the New York-based group Human Rights First [advocacy website], were in Nizhny Novgorod to attend a human rights forum organized to commemorate the first anniversary of the murder of crusading journalist Anna Politkovskaya [JURIST news archive].

Politkovskaya, a Russian investigative journalist, was murdered execution-style [WP report] in her Moscow apartment building on October 7, 2006. The first-anniversary forum was organized by the Nizhny Novgorod edition of the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta [media website] and the Nizhny Novgorod Foundation to Promote Tolerance. Politkovskaya was reporting for Novaya Gazeta at the time of her death. AP has more. Reuters has additional coverage. Interfax has local coverage.