VALENTINE’S DAY MARKS 30 YEARS OF FATWA AGAINST SALMAN RUSHDIE

It’s been 30 years since February 14, 1989, when Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khomeini, in the spirit contrary to that of Valentine’s Day, issued a fatwa against British Indian writer Salman Rushdie, condemning him to death for his fourth book, The Satanic Verses, which was outlawed by nearly 20 countries. He was granted protection by the UK and spent his next 13 years in safe houses. The fatwa was reissued every year till 1998. In between, his Japanese translator and Norwegian publisher were killed. He wrote about his life under fatwa in his 2012 book, titled after his pseudonym Joseph Anton, lamenting that “a comfortable prison was still a prison”. HTC