Word: iranian
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Rushdie went into hiding after Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini said he should die for writing the book, which many Muslims have found blasphemous...
...called "misled liberals." Said Khomeini: "We should not, for the sake of pleasing several sellout liberals, act in a way that gives the impression that the Islamic Republic of Iran is deviating from its principled positions." Suddenly Rushdie's purported blasphemy seemed minor compared with the sins of Iranian officials who had dared support a renewal of ties with the decadent West...
Tehran radio reported that the Iranian parliament fully supported Khomeini's policy of "keeping aloof from the Great Satan," the U.S., and "cutting relations with colonialist Britain." One of the Tehran regime's leading hard- liners, Premier Hussein Mousavi, accused the West of "cultural conspiracy" and declared that "Iran's firm decisions on the ((Rushdie)) issue will ensure the country's independence and dignity." Small wonder that the best-known pragmatists had run for cover...
Muslim anger surfaced elsewhere, fueling American and British fears for the safety of their hostages. In Lebanon, two related pro-Iranian Shi'ite organizations, Hizballah and Islamic Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine, both believed to be holding Western hostages, endorsed Khomeini's threat. Islamic Jihad issued a vow to seek revenge against "all those who take part in strong and ferocious campaigns against Islam." The statement was accompanied by a Polaroid photograph of the three American hostages, Alann Steen, Robert Polhill and Jesse Turner, who were kidnaped from the campus of Beirut University College more than two years...
...Wednesday some 200 members of the National Writers Union demonstrated in front of the Iranian mission to the United Nations. And in New York City's SoHo district, 21 American writers, including Norman Mailer, Susan Sontag and Joan Didion, met to exchange brave words and read passages from the Rushdie novel. Christopher Hitchens, a columnist for the Nation, received the loudest response when he said, "Until the threat of murder by contract is lifted, all authors should declare themselves as coconspirators. It is time for all of us to don the yellow star and end the hateful isolation...