$100,000 to kill Rushdie
Gulf Daily News
16th Feb 2004
TEHRAN: An Iranian extremist Islamic group calling itself the General Staff for the Glorification of Martyrs of the Islamic World has offered a $100,000 (BD37,800) reward for the killing of British novelist Salman Rushdie, a Press report said yesterday.
According to the hardline Jomhuri Eslami newspaper, the tiny and little-known group called on "all volunteer Muslims to sign up on its Internet site... to kill Salman Rushdie."
"The reward will be paid to anyone who kills Salman Rushdie or his family," the paper said, quoting a member of the group who also pledged the organisation's facilities to help with the operation.
The novelist, born in Bombay, India, to a Muslim family, sparked fury from Muslims worldwide a decade ago because of alleged blasphemy and apostasy in his novel The Satanic Verses.
The new reward marked the anniversary of the fatwa, or religious edict, issued by Iran's revolutionary founder, the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, on February 14, 1989 calling for Rushdie's execution.
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American freestyle wrestlers, from far left, Joa Heskett, from California, Mike Mena, from Indiana, and Samie Hensom, from New York, arrive at Mehrabad International airport in Tehran, Iran on Monday, Feb. 16, 2004, to participate in Takhti Wrestling Cup on Feb. 18 in Tehran.