Iranian media outlets add to bounty for killing of Salman Rushdie

Iranian media outlets have added a further $600,000 (€545,000) to a bounty for the killing of British author Salman Rushdie. The leader of Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution, the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa, or religious edict, in 1989, calling on Muslims to kill Rushdie after his novel ‘The Satanic Verses’ was branded blasphemous, forcing him into hiding for years.

Hardliners say Khomeini’s edict is irrevocable and eternal. A wealthyIranian religious organisation is offering $3.3 million to anyone carrying out the fatwa and the semi-official Fars news agency has now published a list revealing that 40 news outlets have added to the pot, with Fars itself contributing $30,000.

“These media outlets have set the $600,000 bounty on the 27th anniversary of the historical fatwa to show it is still alive,” Mansour Amiri, organiser of a digital technology exhibition at which the money was announced this month, told Reuters.

Amiri is the head of the Seraj Cyberspace Organisation, affiliated to the Basij volunteer militia, which is allied to the elite Revolutionary Guards established to defend the values of the revolution.

The head of the militia visited the exhibition, Fars said.

Rushdie’s agent said he had no comment. Iran’s foreign ministry was not immediately available to comment.

In 1998, Iran’s pro-reform government, led by president Mohammad Khatami, distanced itself from the fatwa, saying the threat against Rushdie was over after he had lived in hiding for nine years.

The book’s Japanese translator was stabbed to death in 1991 and other people involved in publishing it were attacked.

But Khomeini’s successor as supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in 2005 that the fatwa was still valid, and three hardline clerics called on followers to kill Rushdie.

With the landmark nuclear deal with the US sealed last year, followed by the lifting of international sanctions, pragmatist President Hassan Rouhani is trying to end Iran’s rift with the West.

However, despite the government’s policy of wider engagement, hardline allies of Khamenei fear that opening up to the West will eventually weaken their influence and the legitimacy of the Islamic revolution.

The deal with the US has intensified Iran’s political infighting ahead of two crucial elections on Friday.

A hardline watchdog body, the Guardian Council, has disqualified thousands of Rouhani allies, barring them from entering the race for parliament and the assembly of experts, which has power to appoint the supreme leader.

– Reuters