But as the eldest daughter of the Uzbek dictator..

Troubling reality behind facade of Uzbek ‘princess’

Gulnara Karimova has contributed to US foundation for Aids research amFAR, yet homosexuality is illegal in Uzbekistan. Photograph: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images

If it wasn’t so bizarre and genuinely troubling, the extravagant character of Gulnara Karimova would almost be a tremendous joke. One of those hyper-real women that grace the pages of Tintin or Asterix in harem pants and jewels with secret compartments stuffed with poison. She may have been played by Fenella Fielding in Carry On Up the Ferghana, with Sid James as her disreputable father. But as the eldest daughter of the Uzbek dictator, Islam Karimov, and his presumptive heir there is nothing funny at all about Karimova.

Known as princess of the Uzbeks, Karimova does it all and has it all. Married at 19 to Mansur Maqsudi, a local Coca-Cola executive, her father made Coca-Cola the only soft drink of choice in Uzbekistan. Divorced a few years later, Karimova returned from the US to Tashkent with her two children. Karimova manages to combine various careers into her busy life – from serious politician and ambassador to pop diva via fashion designer and businesswoman. Recording under her father’s nickname for her, GooGoosha, her videos show her as an Arabian Nights fantasy princess bedecked in diamonds as big as the Kremlin against the skyline of Samarkand with a Lamborgini thrown in for good measure.

But this Kylie of the Steppes is also a creator of jewels for Chopard – though when I asked them for a comment they denied that she was continuing to work for them. She is the organiser of the Fund Forum – a festival for children that includes Cristiano Ronaldo and Samuel Eto’o as patrons. In fact, Karimova attracts all sorts of celebrities to her various causes: Kenzo, Rod Stewart and Julio Iglesias among others.

Her fabulous wealth, estimated at $570m, is reported to have come from her presidency of Uzdunrobita, the national Uzbek mobile phone network – a gift from her father who recently proclaimed her Uzbek ambassador to the UN office in Geneva and also ambassador to Spain. The Swiss have named her the 10th richest woman in Switzerland. Is there no end to this woman’s ambitions?

Apparently not. Last year she contributed to US foundation for Aids research amFAR, and was photographed at its huge charity event at the Cannes Film Festival with Sharon Stone and Bill Clinton. The event attracts A-list celebs such as George Clooney, Sir Elton John, Claudia Schiffer and Ringo Starr, and is to Cannes what the Vanity Fair event is to the Oscars.

On the committee is Karimova’s good friend and co-president of Chopard, Caroline Gruosi–Scheufele, who has asked the Uzbek princess to be a co-chair this year. The event was a glamorous one this year with performances by Mary J Blige and Alan Cumming. Karimova’s fellow chairs include Giorgio Armani, Emily Blunt, Harvey Weinstein and Elizabeth Taylor.

I suppose one could say all money is welcome in the fight against Aids, but will the guests at the chicest gala in Cannes know that homosexuality is illegal in Uzbekistan and punishable by three years in prison if you get caught? And that last autumn a Tashkent court sentenced 27-year-old Uzbek anti-Aids activist Maxim Popov to seven years imprisonment. The verdict claimed that Popov contradicted Uzbek traditions and culture by distributing a brochure about the need to use condoms and clean syringes to combat HIV.

Well amFAR knows, because on 10 May it signed a petition to the US and the UN asking them to put pressure on the Uzbek government to release Popov. Yet, on the same day, it announced the appointment of Karimova as co-chair of the Cannes event. Last week a dissident Uzbek newspaper wrote about amFAR’s curious relationship with Karimova and her name was removed immediately from its website, only to reappear the following day. Beyond its total disregard for HIV education is the appalling record of the Uzbek state on human rights abuses. The atrocities include not only accusations of boiling political prisoners in oil but also the massacre at Andijan that happened five years ago last week.

I was not at the gala on Thursday but can only hope the guests in their fine jewels and furs remembered Popov languishing in his cell in a Tashkent prison and all the other victims of Karimova’s father. In fact, I hope that they turn their backs on her and make her feel the fear and isolation felt by the Uzbek people, both at home and abroad.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/25/troubling-reality-behind-facade-uzbek-princess