From: EurasiaDigest (digest@eurasianet.org)
Date: Mon Jan 10 2005 - 12:24:05 EST
KAZAKH OPPOSITION FEARS THAT LIQUIDATION RULING SIGNALS NEW CRACKDOWN
Kazakh opposition figures warned that a 6 January court decision to liquidate the Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DVK) political party signifies the start of a political crackdown, even as the party planned to appeal the ruling, agencies and newspapers reported. Yevgenii Zhovtis, director of Kazakhstan's International Bureau for Human Rights and a legal consultant to DVK, told a news conference in Almaty on 7 January, "We shall prove that the judge did not pay attention to all the documents that were submitted and request that the court annul the decision," Interfax-Kazakhstan reported. But in a statement published on 7 January by the opposition newspaper "Navigator," Zhovtis cast doubt on the hope of obtaining a fair decision from a Kazakh court. In a 7 January statement in "Navigator," opposition party Ak Zhol expressed "serious concern" over the decision, calling the court decision part of a "campaign to discredit and destroy not only opposition, but any independent political parties and politicians." A
number of articles and interviews with opposition figures in the newspaper "Respublika" on 7 January linked the court decision to recent events in Ukraine, explaining that Kazakh authorities are trying to forestall political change in the country. DK
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