Dictator's Daughter Lands NYC Fashion Week Show

Gulnara “GooGoosha” Karimova may be the daughter of a hated dictator who once boiled an enemy alive, but that didn’t stop organizers from allowing her to unveil her new fashion line during a show at New York’s upcoming Fashion Week. Karimova, 39, is a high-ranking official in the government of her father, Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov. US diplomats once described her as “the single most hated person in the country,” but on Sept. 15, she’ll be touted as the jet-setting designer of the “Guli” fashion line.

Karimova has also filmed a video with Julio Iglesias and booked Sting for a 2009 fashion festival in her attempts to project a glamorous image, the New York Post reports. Documents released by WikiLeaks, however, reveal that she is seen in her home country as “a greedy, power-hungry individual who uses her father to crush business people or anyone else who stands in her way.” Human rights activists say Karimova, who also has links to the Russian mob, shouldn’t be “benefiting from the international limelight while the Uzbek government continues to engage in ... torture and forced child labor,” says one. (More Islam Karimov stories.)