The death-sentence fatwa issued against Salman Rushdie by Iran’s revolutionary leader 18 years ago is still valid and will remain so, a leading cleric said on Friday following Britain’s knighting of the controversial author.
”In Islamic Iran, the revolutionary fatwa issued by Imam Khomeini remains valid and cannot be modified,” Hojatoleslam Ahmad Khatami said during his Friday prayers sermon in Tehran.
The Indian-born novelist was forced to go into hiding for a decade after Khomeini issued the 1989 death sentence over his book The Satanic Verses, saying it insulted Islam.
Iran already earlier this week summoned the British ambassador to Tehran to protest at Rushdie’s knighting by Queen Elizabeth II as a ”provocative act”.
”The old and decrepit government of Great Britain should know that the era of their empire is over and today they are a valet in the service of the United States,” Khatami added.
Khomeini’s successor as supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in January 2005 he still believed the British novelist was an apostate whose killing would be authorised by Islam. — AFP
