Pakistan on Monday deplored Britain’s decision to award a knighthood to author Salman Rushdie, whose novel The Satanic Verses outraged many Muslims around the world.
Rushdie was awarded a knighthood for services to literature in Queen Elizabeth’s birthday honours list published on Saturday.
Iran accused Britain on Sunday of insulting Islamic values by knighting Rushdie.
In Pakistan, students affiliated with a religious party protested in two towns while Foreign Ministry spokesperson Tasnim Aslam said the decision to honour Rushdie was insensitive to the sentiments of Muslims.
”We deplore the decision of the British government to knight him. This, we feel, is insensitive and we would convey our sentiments to the British government,” Aslam told a regular briefing.
”Salman Rushdie has tried to insult and malign Muslims through his writings and this had provoked very strong reaction and sentiments in the Muslim world,” she said.
Rushdie’s book prompted protests, some violent, by Muslims in many countries after it was published in 1988. The late Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa death warrant against Rushdie in 1989, forcing him into hiding for nine years.
Earlier on Monday, Pakistan’s Parliament adopted a resolution condemning the knighthood and said Britain should withdraw it.
”This is a source of hurt for Muslims and will encourage people to commit blasphemy against the Prophet Muhammad,” Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Sher Afgan Khan Niazi told Parliament.
”We demand Britain desist from such actions and withdraw the title of knighthood,” he said.
Farhana Khalid Binori, a Pakistani woman MP from a conservative religious party, said Rushdie’s knighthood was an insult.
”It is a slap on the face of Muslims. It is not acceptable at all,” she said.
British’s twice-yearly honours ritual — designed to recognise outstanding achievement — is part of an ancient and complex awards system. A total of 946 honours were handed out in the birthday list, including 21 knighthoods. — Reuters