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.\" 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. (RFE/RL)