The British author Salman Rushdie says he is delighted to be free after the Iranian government said it would not support any attempt to kill him.

Mr Rushdie, the author of the controversial novel The Satanic Verses, spent nine years in hiding after the late Iranian spiritual leader, Ayatollah Khomenei, issued a fatwa or religious edict saying he should be killed.

A reward of $2.5m dollars was put on his head.

While Mr Rushdie enjoyed his first day of freedom, the Bangladeshi authorities issued an arrest warrant for the feminist writer Taslima Nasreen, who has also been accused of insulting Islam.

Ms Nasreen recently returned to Bangladesh after spending several years in exile.

Both cases raise the question of how to balance freedom of thought with respect for people's faith. They also highlight the apparent difficulties in reconciling Western and Islamic value systems.

Muslims say that Mr Rushdie and Ms Nasreen caused grave offence to Islam by their writings, and should be punished. But supporters of the two writers say there were merely exercising the right to freedom of expression.

While many Muslims did not support the idea of the death sentence against Mr Rushdie, they also believe he should not have written what he did.

They also point out there is no such thing as complete freedom of speech - for example, some Western countries impose restrictions on sexually-explicit material as well as racist literature.

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