It is a matter of security, comrades!
Gulnara Karimova — the fascista fashion designer whose autocrat father has forced millions to pick cotton for slave wages in Uzbekistan — insisted this afternoon she was moving her controversial runway show out of Lincoln Center for “safety and security reasons.”
“IMG and GULI decided that it would be in the best interests of the safety of guests for the GULI show not to proceed as planned at the Lincoln Center,” Karimova’s fashion label insisted in an email to prospective attendees.
The designing dictator’s daughter also confirmed The Post’s report that the show will be held Thursday at noon at Cipriani on 42nd Street, noting that the label will serve “Welcome cocktails at 11:30.”
A spokesman for IMG, the producer of Mercedes Benz Fashion Week, declined to comment.
Nevertheless, a source close to the situation said it was “a totally preposterous suggestion” that the Uzbek jet-setter was booted from her Lincoln Center slot for safety or security reasons.
Last week, IMG said in a public statement it was “horrified by the human-rights abuses in Uzbekistan” following a report in The Post that raised concerns about Karimova’s alleged complicity in the brutal rule of her father, who has killed and tortured thousands of civilians.
On Friday, sources said IMG cancelled Karimova’s runway show after she refused IMG’s request that she cancel it on her own.
Separately today, the International Labor Rights Forum posted an online petition to protest the plan to carry on with the show at Cipriani.
“Cipriani’s restaurant, whose owners pled guilty of tax evasion several years ago, should not provide a forum for Karimova’s show,” the group said in the petition, which was signed by nearly more than 280 people as of late afternoon.
Representatives of Cipriani didn’t respond to requests for comment.