All roads lead back to Salman Rushdie. At least, that’s what the Iranian Ayatollahs would have you believe. Following last week’s furore over a poorly made YouTube video which mocked the life of the Prophet Mohammed, the Iranians are baying for Rushdie again.
Ayatollah Hassan Sanei, who leads a semi-official foundation to honour the memory of Ayatollah Khomeini, has upped the bounty for Rushdie’s assassination by $500,000. The overall pot now stands at $3.3 million.
What has Rushdie to do with the poorly produced film of a convicted Egyptian fraudster? Well, nothing – but then clerical fascisms seldom concern themselves with the trivialities of reason. Sanei believes that Rushdie set the trend for insulting Mohammed, a supposed pioneer of new insults and ridicule. The Iranian press has quoted him as saying:
As long as the exalted Imam Khomeini’s historical fatwa against apostate Rushdie is not carried out, it won’t be the last insult.
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