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September 16th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
Although Ayatollah Sanei has offered financial rewards for carrying out the
edict in the past, he said Muslim anger over the recent film meant the time
was now ripe.
“The aim [of the fatwa] has been to uproot the anti-Islamic conspiracy
and now the necessity for taking this action is even more obvious than any
other time,” he said. “I’m adding another $500,000 to the reward
and anyone who carries out this order will immediately receive the whole
amount.” The total bounty is now $3.3m (£2.1 m).
The increased bounty was issued on the eve of the publication of a memoir by
Rushdie about his years spent in hiding and living under armed guard from
would-be executioners intent on carrying out Khomeini’s sentence.
It also re-opens an affair that appeared to have been laid to rest after
Iranian officials gave assurances that the fatwa would not be put into
effect.
In 1998, Iran’s reformist then president, Mohammad Khatami, declared the
Rushdie affair “completely finished” during an appearance at the
UN General Assembly in New York. The Iranian foreign minister at the time,
Kemal Kharrazi, also announced that Iran would not threaten the author’s
life or encourage others to kill him.
The statements led to a restoration of diplomatic ties between London and
Tehran, which Britain had cut in protest. It also prompted Rushdie to come
out of hiding.
However, the fatwa – passed four months before Khomeini’s death – was never
annulled and hardliners have frequently revived the issue as a political
weapon in their internal struggle with more moderate elements in Iran’s
theocratic regime.
It is unlikely that Ayatollah Sanei, personal representative of Iran’s supreme
leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on the 15th Khordad Foundation, was acting
without higher approval. In 2005, Ayatollah Khamenei himself reaffirmed the
fatwa while addressing pilgrims preparing to visit Mecca.
In a speech last Friday, he decried the film as the work of US imperialism and “Zionism”
and linked it to other perceived western attacks on Islam, including The
Satanic Verses and the Danish cartoon contest depicting the Prophet
Mohammad.
“Had they not backed the previous links in this evil chain, namely Salman
Rushdie, the Danish cartoonist, and the US pastors who burned the Holy Koran
and had they not made orders for [production of] tens of anti-Islam movies
to companies affiliated to the Zionist capitalists, things would not have
lead to this great and unforgivable sin today,” Ayatollah Khamenei
said.
A Foreign Office spokesman said: “We are aware of the reports and take any
threat to the life of a British National very seriously. Our diplomatic
position has always been clear that threats to Mr Rushdie are completely
unacceptable.”
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