World

Still Risky For Rushdie

February 14, 1999 / 4:34 PM EST / AP

On the 10th anniversary of the edict against British writer Salman Rushdie, an Iranian foundation that has put a price on his head said Sunday that it remained valid and would be carried out.

"The idea of Rushdie's annihilation is still very much alive and seeks only the right moment," Ayatollah Hassan Saneii said in a statement published in the hard-line Jomhuri Islami daily.

"There are many people in different countries who are ready to carry out this verdict. Surely, this verdict will be implemented one day."

Saneii's Khordad Foundation, a semi-official charity organization, has offered a $2.8 million reward to anyone who kills Rushdie.

Article 19, a London-based anti-censorship group, downplayed Saneii's remarks.

"This ayatollah is on the margins in Iran. He is just trying to make political capital out of it domestically," said spokeswoman Carmel Bedford.

Ten years ago Sunday, the late Iranian spiritual leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a "fatwa," or Islamic edict, proclaiming that Rushdie was an apostate and should be killed.

Khomeini said the writer had insulted Islam in his novel "The Satanic Verses."

The Farsi-language Jomhuri Islami on Sunday published a 16-page supplement to mark the anniversary.

Khomeini's fatwa, which Iran says is irrevocable, has been a point of division between hard-liners and moderates inside the Islamic government.

Moderate President Mohammad Khatami has been trying to improve relations with the West since he took office last year. His government in September tried to distance itself from the Rushdie affair by saying it would not be associated with any reward offered for the writer's death.

Rushdie was forced into hiding after the fatwa was issued. But he has begun to appear in public more often since last September's announcement.

Rushdie, 51, has been granted a visa to visit his native India, but it is not known when he intends to travel there.