Nicosia, Wednesday
AN IRANIAN charity which has offered $2m (#1.3m) for Salman Rushdie's
head says Muslims will take revenge on anyone who supports him or
publicises The Satanic Verses.
A statement by the June 5th Foundation, printed in Tehran's Jomhuri
Eslami newspaper today, referred to riots over the book last week in
Turkey which killed 36 people and said: ''Anyone who in any way supports
Salman Rushdie or his blasphemous book will face the same fate as he.''
Mr Rushdie has been living in hiding under police guard since 1989,
when the late Ayatollah Khomeini ordered Muslims to kill him for
blaspheming Islam.
Last Friday Muslim demonstrators set fire to a hotel in the Turkish
town of Sivas during a protest against Turkish author Aziz Nesin, who
published parts of the book.
''The Sivas events showed that the Salman Rushdie affair is not
limited to one nation and one country and all Muslim nations hate this
mean person, and all those who in one way or another support him or
publicise his thoroughly blasphemous book, and will take revenge on
them,'' the statement said.
It was signed by Hassan Sanei, head of the foundation and an aide of
Khomeini. He has offered $2m plus expenses for anyone who kills Mr
Rushdie.
It said the ''boiling anger of the Muslim people of Sivas . . .
should serve as a warning and a lesson for Western governments which
still fail to realise the sanctity of the beliefs of a billion
Muslims''.--Reuter.
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