Iran is furious
that Great Britain bestowed a knighthood on author Salman Rushdie. The country trotted out the old "insult to Islam" thing and declared that as a result of the knighthood that suicide bombings are now totally justified.
Iran accused Britain yesterday of insulting Islam by awarding a knighthood to Salman Rushdie, whose novel The Satanic Verses prompted the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to issue a fatwa calling for his assassination.
Mohammad Ali Hosseini, a spokesman for Iran's foreign ministry, portrayed the decision to honour the novelist as an orchestrated act of aggression directed against Islamic societies, describing Rushdie as "one of the most hated figures" in the Islamic world.
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Rushdie returned to public life in 1999, a decade after being forced underground by Khomeini's declaration.
He was the most high-profile of the 946 people honoured in the Queen's birthday list, drawn from nominations by the public or expert organisations.
A spokesman for the Foreign Office said the honour was "richly deserved" and the reasons for it were "self-explanatory".
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In a statement following the announcement of his knighthood on Saturday, Rushdie, 59, said he was "thrilled and humbled to receive this great honour". Literary supporters said the decision to include the novelist among 21 knighthoods was overdue, claiming the British establishment had for many years been reluctant to be associated with the controversial figure.
Rushdie is a brave man. It's amazing that he's still alive, actually. Kudos to the Queen for honoring him.
