Iran adamant over Rushdie fatwa

BBC News:

Iran's hard-line Revolutionary Guards have declared the death sentence on British author Salman Rushdie is still valid - 16 years after it was issued. ... The order was issued after publication of Mr Rushdie's novel "The Satanic Verses", condemned as blasphemous. ...

The Revolutionary Guards, who answer directly to Iran's current Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said: "This statement, while stressing the irrevocability of the death verdict against Salman Rushdie, says history shows that the Muslims have in no era accepted their sanctities being defiled."

"The day will come when they will punish the apostate Rushdie for his scandalous acts and insults against the Koran and the Prophet (Mohammed)," they said, two days before the anniversary of the order. ...

The guards' statement comes a month after Ayatollah Khomeini's successor Ayatollah Khamenei said he still believed the British novelist deserved to die.

"They talk of respect for all religions but they support an apostate worthy of death like Rushdie," he said.

The BBC's Frances Harrison reports from Tehran that religious authorities in Iran say the only person who can lift the sentence was the man who imposed it, Ayatollah Khomeini, who died in 1989....

Last year, the Khordad Foundation, a charity that put a $2.8m bounty on Mr Rushdie, declared the fatwa remained valid. ...