spinnin'dervish
February 12th, 2005, 11:20 AM
Rushdie fatwa stands
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's hardline Revolutionary Guards declared on Saturday that the death sentence passed against writer Salman Rushdie was irreversible and said Muslims would one day carry it out.
The Guards were marking the anniversary of the 1989 fatwa pronounced against Rushdie by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who considered his novel "The Satanic Verses" blasphemous.
"This statement, while stressing the irrevocability of the death verdict against Salman Rushdie, says history shows that the Muslims have in no era accepted their sanctities being defiled," they said in a statement faxed to Reuters.
"The day will come when the Muslims take retribution for apostate Salman Rushdie's transgression against the holy Koran and the Prophet Mohammad," it added.
Iran's reformist government promised Britain in 1998 that the Islamic Republic would not send an assassin to kill Rushdie.
However, hardline religious authorities say the only person who could rescind the fatwa is Khomeini, who died in 1989.
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's hardline Revolutionary Guards declared on Saturday that the death sentence passed against writer Salman Rushdie was irreversible and said Muslims would one day carry it out.
The Guards were marking the anniversary of the 1989 fatwa pronounced against Rushdie by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who considered his novel "The Satanic Verses" blasphemous.
"This statement, while stressing the irrevocability of the death verdict against Salman Rushdie, says history shows that the Muslims have in no era accepted their sanctities being defiled," they said in a statement faxed to Reuters.
"The day will come when the Muslims take retribution for apostate Salman Rushdie's transgression against the holy Koran and the Prophet Mohammad," it added.
Iran's reformist government promised Britain in 1998 that the Islamic Republic would not send an assassin to kill Rushdie.
However, hardline religious authorities say the only person who could rescind the fatwa is Khomeini, who died in 1989.