After the death of the previous president Islam Karimov, the question immediately arises, who will be the next president of Uzbekistan. Some sources write that one of the possible candidates is Gulnara Karimova, the eldest daughter of the late president.
Gulnara Karimova became professor of political science at a university in Uzbekistan and then made quite an amazing career. She was a singer, released her own fashion collection in New York, became the richest woman in Central Asia. Her fortune was estimated at 1 billion dollars. She founded the company in Uzbekistan, established charity funds.
It is also known that Gulnara has property abroad. She was one of the most influential people in Central Asia. Gulnara was also the representative of Uzbekistan in foreign countries. She served as the ambassador of Uzbekistan in Spain and represented Uzbekistan at the UN in Geneva.
In 2012, Swedish journalists found out that the daughter of the president received from the Swedish-Finnish telecom company $ 300 million to get into Uzbek lucrative market. The money was transferred to the offshore company in Gibraltar. After that Gulnara had difficulties in her business. The investigation of this case involved ten european countries and the United States. Her accounts in European banks have frozen.
In 2013, the eldest Karimov’s daughter had serious disputes with her father. Before that, she did not hide that she wants to become the President of Uzbekistan. After that she criticized the regime of her father. Special official services of Uzbekistan provided compromising, which contained facts about her illegal activities and money laundering.
Conflict with his father continued, also she had bad relations with her mother and sisters. Older Karimov’s daughter had account in Twitter and wrote about her father’s regime in Uzbekistan, she did not think that his style of running of country was right and wrote about the lack of democracy and law in the country.
Her father and the security services have found out about it and then she was sent under the house arrest.
After she was put under house arrest, her twitter and other social networking sites have been blocked. Moreover, during the house arrest she is forbidden to use the Internet, watch TV, use the phone.
Gulnara Karimova should be under house arrest before the end of 2017, then she can be free.
Gulnara completely denied her guilt with post in twitter. “She describes herself as a victim, and hes father as a man who manipulated”, – says Daniil Kislov, editor-in chief of Central Asia Ferghana.ru news agency.
Kislov reported that no one but Karimov himself could not give instructions to place a daughter under house arrest or detain her close friends. He says that Karimov punished his daughter for the way of life that she led.
Experts also see the political reasons in her arrest. One of the reasons for house arrest of the president’s daughter could be a conflict with right hand of Uzbekistanian president, Rustam Inoyatov, who headed the National Security Service of Uzbekistan (NSS). All Uzbek nomenclatures were under the control of Inoyatov and he implied important decisions in the country and controlled the information that got to Islam Karimov.
Gulnara Karimova was in conflict with Inoyatov. She is not just accused him on human rights violations and the attempts to usurp power, writing about it in her twitter. She also wrote that Inoyatov set up her father and her family against her in order to strengthen its own influence.
The last 25 years of rule by Islam Karimov since independence of Uzbekistan, showed his little interest in human rights, economic decline, forced labor in the cotton fields. After it was reported corruption scandals of his eldest daughter, she was more interested in his family’s reputation in Uzbekistan and abroad.
Her last tweet were published in February 2014. She wrote that the luxury apartment in Tashkent was attacked. After this tweet she was arrested by a group of people who used to touch mode and would not dare. It was her last tweet.
A month after Gulnara was put under house arrest, the editors of the information agency BBC got her secret letter. The letter of Gulnara contains information about thatoperation.
“What is worse of all, it is impossible for me to be a human when somebody look after you with the camera, when you live with armed men, and when you’re depressed (is depressed, humiliated) seeing all that is happening around. Special Forces on the roof, a search of personal belongings, broken windows, and worse just – a human with a blindfold, which dragged on the floor “, – stated she in the letter.
“A man with a blindfold,” according to the experts can be Rustam Madumarov, Karimova’s business partner and, according to some sources, her boyfriend. He was arrested that night along with two close friends of Gulnara Karimova. On the same day they were accused of tax evasion, embezzlement, illegal possession of foreign currency and money laundering.
Some parts of letter are inconsistent and partly difficult to read. Gulnara says that occurs within a few weeks “hundreds, may already be thousands” of her friends and former employees were threatened and detained.
Karimova said that the causes of the isolation was the fact that she wrote and said “unnecessary truth”. The place, where she lives now has no TV, phone or internet. And she was worried for her daughter, who is ill.
Also in the letter, which he sent by an anonymous person, who wants to restore justice, she writes that she lives under the gun cameras and under intense pressure, her beaten, bruises on her arms.
Analysis of the handwriting in the letter confirm 75 percent, that the letter was written by Gulnara Karimova.
A source in Tashkent, that is close to Karimova confirmed that she has been under house arrest along with his 16-year-old daughter Iman. The man, who decided to remain anonymous, also said that US embassy staff visited Iman, because she is the US citizen (her father, Karimova’s ex-husband Mansur Maqsudi, who was born in Afghanistan, is an American citizen) (Source: www.bbc.com).
Where is the elder daughter of Islam Karimov now is not known. There are several assumptions.
She may be under house arrest in Uzbekistan. Also, she may already be dead, because nobody had not seen her for two years.
If she is alive, Gulnara called to be probable president of Uzbekistan after her father. She has received support among the people of Uzbekistan, because she began to struggle with the regime.
People’s Democratic Movement “Birdamlik” also supports the eldest daughter, because she resisted his father’s regime.