Iran 'renews' Rushdie death sentence

Iranian hardliners occasionally renew calls for Rushdie's death

Iran's hardline Revolutionary Guards have renewed the death sentence on British author Salman Rushdie issued 14 years ago by the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Khatami said in 2001 the death sentence should be seen as closed

The hardline military organisation, which answers directly to Iran's current Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said that the original fatwa, issued in 1989 following the publication of Mr Rushdie's novel "The Satanic Verses", was still valid.

"The historical decree on Salman Rushdie is irrevocable and nothing can change it," said a statement carried by Iran's official IRNA news agency.

Iran's current president, the moderate Mohammad Khatami, has said that the death sentence should be seen as closed.

However hardliners within the country have occasionally renewed their calls for Mr Rushdie's death for writing a novel, which they have denounced as blasphemous.

These calls have continued despite the Iranian Government publicly committing itself in 1998 to not carrying out the death sentence, a decision which led to a deal between Iran and the UK to normalise relations.

Gradual re-emergence

The British Foreign Office said that the statement was "not the first time that statements have been made that are contrary to oft-repeated official Iranian policy".

It also reiterated Iran's 1998 decision not "take any action whatsoever, to threaten the life of the author of the Satanic Verses or anyone associated with his work".

Since 1989 Rushdie has received round-the-clock protection in the UK as a result of the Iranian Government's fatwa.

The writer had to keep his whereabouts secret and he ended up living in 30 different locations in the UK over nine years.

However after current Iranian Government distanced itself from the fatwa, Rushdie has begun to emerge more frequently in public, even appearing in the hit Hollywood movie Bridget Jones's Diary.