Salman Rushdie's knighthood 'justifies suicide attacks'

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[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Salman Rushdie's knighthood 'justifies suicide attacks'

Posted: 6/18/2007 8:53:22 AM EDT

Another day, another reason to be outraged…

Rushdie's knighthood 'justifies suicide attacks'

By Matthew Moore and agencies
Last Updated: 4:20pm BST 18/06/2007

Pakistani MPs have voted unanimously to condemn the knighthood awarded to Sir Salman Rushdie, amid growing Muslim opposition to Britain's decision to honour the novelist.

The protests on the streets of Multan echo the angry demonstrations when The Satanic Verses was published in 1989
During an angry parliamentary debate today one cabinet minister even suggested that the award justified attempts on Sir Salman's life.

"The West is accusing Muslims of extremism and terrorism. If someone exploded a bomb on his body he would be right to do so unless the British government apologises and withdraws the 'sir' title," Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq, the religious affairs minister, said.

"If Britain doesn't withdraw the award, all Muslim countries should break off diplomatic relations."

The implied threat to Sir Salman's life recalled the 1989 fatwa death warrant issued against the author by Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini after the publication of The Satanic Verses.

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Official Pakistani anger at the knighthood has been echoed on the streets of Pakistan.

In the eastern city of Multan hardline students burned effigies of the Queen and Sir Salman. About 100 students carrying banners condemning the author chanted: "Kill him! Kill him!"

Today's resolution, passed through Pakistan's lower house of parliament, calls on the author's knighthood to be withdrawn as it is offensive to Muslims and will provoke religious hatred.

Sher Afgan Khan Niazi, the minister who proposed the motion, said the knighthood would encourage people to commit blasphemy against the Prophet Mohammed.

"The 'sir' title from Britain for blasphemer Salman Rushdie has hurt the sentiments of the Muslims across the world," she said.

A Foreign Ministry spokeswoman confirmed that Islamabad would be making a formal protest to London.

"We deplore the decision of the British government to knight him. This we feel is insensitive and we would convey our sentiments to the British government."

The British High Commission in Islamabad defended the honour, saying Sir Salman's knighthood was "richly deserved" .

Sir Salman was one of 21 distinguished Britons awarded a knighthood in the Queen's Birthday Honours list on Saturday. He said he was "thrilled and honoured".

Now spending much of his time in the United States, the Booker prize-winner was forced into hiding and guarded by Special Branch for nine years until Teheran withdrew support for the death sentence, a decision which gradually allowed him to return to public life.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=BAD02EJIABO0ZQFIQMFCFFOAVCBQYIV0?xml=/news/2007/06/18/wrushdie118.xml

Posted: 6/18/2007 8:57:40 AM EDT

[#1]

Hehehe

You know how to warm the cockles of my heart Vito

Posted: 6/18/2007 9:07:15 AM EDT

[#2]

Posted: 6/18/2007 9:11:51 AM EDT

[#3]

Quoted:

"The West is accusing Muslims of extremism and terrorism. If someone exploded a bomb on his body he would be right to do so unless the British government apologises and withdraws the 'sir' title," Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq, the religious affairs minister, said.

Wow, I wonder why?

Posted: 6/18/2007 9:14:06 AM EDT

[#4]

Quoted:

Quoted:

"The West is accusing Muslims of extremism and terrorism. If someone exploded a bomb on his body he would be right to do so unless the British government apologises and withdraws the 'sir' title," Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq, the religious affairs minister, said.

Wow, I wonder why?

NME, you constantly use

in your posts. What does it mean !!

Are you constantly and continually displeased or______________?????

T

Posted: 6/18/2007 9:16:17 AM EDT

[#5]

Quoted:

Quoted:

"The West is accusing Muslims of extremism and terrorism. If someone exploded a bomb on his body he would be right to do so unless the British government apologises and withdraws the 'sir' title," Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq, the religious affairs minister, said.

Wow, I wonder why?

NME, you constantly use

in your posts. What does it mean !!

Are you constantly and continually displeased or______________?????

T

Posted: 6/18/2007 9:32:17 AM EDT

[#6]

Remeber all the trouble after the Muhhamed cartoons? Here we go again.

Posted: 6/18/2007 9:40:18 AM EDT

[#7]

Is there any way we could just piss these people off to death?

Or maybe could drop Paxil instead of bombs.

Posted: 6/18/2007 9:46:51 AM EDT

[#8]

What was the reason for the Knigthood? How did his writing that book bring honor to the UK?

Posted: 6/18/2007 9:48:25 AM EDT

[#9]

Man, these guys are like the class crybaby who's gotten used to having his way every time he has a tantrum. Pakistan, face it, you're irrelevant.

Posted: 6/18/2007 9:51:53 AM EDT

[#10]

So if the British burned Mohammed in effigy, the ME would explode, but when the ME burns the Queen in effigy, they don't expect anything bad to happen? Of course, nothing bad WILL happen, but still...

Posted: 6/18/2007 9:52:11 AM EDT

[#11]

These people are funny.

The act of breathing...walking...talking...and changing the oil in your car are all reasons for suicide attacks.

I brushed my teeth this morning.... "YOU MUST DIE!"

HH

Posted: 6/18/2007 10:01:22 AM EDT

[#12]

Quoted:
These people are funny.

The act of breathing...walking...talking...and changing the oil in your car are all reasons for suicide attacks.

I brushed my teeth this morning.... "YOU MUST DIE!"

HH

You heathen infidel

Posted: 6/18/2007 10:07:02 AM EDT

[#13]

Quoted:
These people are funny.

The act of breathing...walking...talking...and changing the oil in your car are all reasons for suicide attacks.

I brushed my teeth this morning.... "YOU MUST DIE!"

HH

Noooooooo

It is because we are in Iraq and support Israel, if we just behave ourselves they will love us… Ron Paul says so.

Posted: 6/18/2007 10:07:12 AM EDT

[#14]

In the eastern city of Multan hardline students burned effigies of the Queen and Sir Salman. About 100 students carrying banners condemning the author chanted: "Kill him! Kill him!"

religion of peace.

Posted: 6/18/2007 10:21:46 AM EDT

[#15]

I have no problem with Muslims committing suicide ...

Posted: 6/18/2007 10:27:28 AM EDT

[#16]

IT'S THE R.O.P. any questions????????

Posted: 6/18/2007 10:28:48 AM EDT

[#17]

And here I thought WE were the biggest threat to Islam.

That's what they've been shouting for several years now, isn't it?

Posted: 6/18/2007 10:32:28 AM EDT

[#18]

Quoted:

Quoted:

"The West is accusing Muslims of extremism and terrorism. If someone exploded a bomb on his body he would be right to do so unless the British government apologises and withdraws the 'sir' title," Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq, the religious affairs minister, said.

Wow, I wonder why?

Me too. This quote crystallizes the problem. I wonder what he thinks "extreme" or "terrorist" means?

Posted: 6/18/2007 10:45:27 AM EDT

[#19]

Quoted:
What was the reason for the Knigthood? How did his writing that book bring honor to the UK?

Excellent question. I was wondering the same myself.
Every review of his writing that I have seen says his writing style sucks, and that his message is more of a personal agenda than anything else.

So why was he given a knighthood? If he deserves one, I sure as hell do!

That said, Pakistan can go screw itself for ever thinking that murder is a sensible response.

Posted: 6/18/2007 8:55:48 PM EDT

[#20]

Quoted:

IT'S THE R.O.P. any questions????????

is it the ROP's SOP?

Posted: 6/18/2007 9:04:18 PM EDT

[#21]

Can we give him a knighthood, too?

(Hey, it's not like anyone in the ME would ever go to the trouble of finding out whether or not we actually have knighthoods in America...

)

Posted: 6/18/2007 9:09:05 PM EDT

[#22]

Religious extremism protected by a liberal media and leftist mindset.

C77

Posted: 6/18/2007 9:44:48 PM EDT

[#23]

I've always wondered why we don't have Christian and Jewish fundamentalists strapping on bomb vests and blowing up Mohammedans. Why is that?

Posted: 6/18/2007 9:46:46 PM EDT

[#24]

Quoted:
I have no problem with Muslims committing suicide ...

if they would just blow themselves up and no one else.

Posted: 6/18/2007 9:50:02 PM EDT

[#25]

Quoted:
I've always wondered why we don't have Christian and Jewish fundamentalists strapping on bomb vests and blowing up Mohammedans. Why is that?

its still in the early innings...what till the relievers get on the mound...

Posted: 6/18/2007 10:03:30 PM EDT

[#26]

Quoted:
I've always wondered why we don't have Christian and Jewish fundamentalists strapping on bomb vests and blowing up Mohammedans. Why is that?

Tolerance, education and leisure.

Posted: 6/22/2007 9:59:01 AM EDT

[#27]

The West is accusing Muslims of extremism and terrorism. If someone exploded a bomb on his body he would be right to do so

Maybe that's just considered "civil disobediance"

the killing of Salman Rushdie cannot be revoked...
''Death to the English.''....
confronting 1.5 billion Muslims around the world....
calling for Rushdie to be killed....
given an award to someone who deserves to be killed....
Rushdie is a hate figure .....
Rushdie was ''liable to be killed..."

slightly different view from AP
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Rushdie-Protests.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Iran Cleric: Rushdie Fatwa Still Stands

Article Tools Sponsored By
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: June 22, 2007

Filed at 11:18 a.m. ET

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- An high-level Iranian cleric said Friday that the religious edict calling for the killing of Salman Rushdie cannot be revoked, and he warned Britain was defying the Islamic world by granting the author knighthood.

Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami reminded worshippers of the 1989 fatwa during a sermon at Tehran University, aired live on state radio. Thousands of worshippers chanted ''Death to the English.''

Khatami does not hold a government position but has the influential post of delivering the sermon during Friday prayers once a month in the Iranian capital. He did not directly call for the fatwa to be carried out.

''Awarding him means confronting 1.5 billion Muslims around the world,'' Khatami said. ''In Islamic Iran, the revolutionary fatwa ... is still alive and cannot be changed.''

Then-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued the fatwa in 1989, calling on Muslims to kill Rushdie because his book ''The Satanic Verses'' was deemed insulting to Islam. Rushdie was forced into hiding for a decade, and the edict deeply damaged Britain's relations with Iran. In 1998, the Iranian government sought to patch up ties by declaring that it would not support the fatwa but that it could not be rescinded.

Queen Elizabeth II's decision to knight Rushdie drew a complaint from the Iranian government and protests around the Muslim world.

About 2,000 people rallied in several Pakistani cities on Friday, calling for Rushdie to be killed and for a boycott of trade with Britain.

A leader of Pakistan's Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam party compared Rushdie's award to the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad published last year in a Danish newspaper, which provoked protests and rioting in Muslim countries.

''Earlier they had published cartoons of our Prophet, and now they have given an award to someone who deserves to be killed,'' Abdul Ghafoor Hayderi told a crowd of about 1,000 people in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city.

Pakistan is a close ally of the United States and Britain in the war on terror, but it has condemned Rushdie's knighthood.

In India's Muslim-majority Kashmir region, a strike over Rushdie's honor closed most shops, offices and schools in the summer capital, Srinagar.

Mufti Mohammad Bashir-ud-din, head of Kashmir's Islamic court, said Rushdie was ''liable to be killed for rendering the gravest injury to the sentiments of the Muslims across the world.''

Britain has defended its decision to honor Rushdie, one of the most prominent novelists of the late 20th century. His 13 books have won numerous awards, including the Booker Prize for ''Midnight's Children'' in 1981.

Muslims angered by Britain's decision protested in London on Friday.

''Rushdie is a hate figure across the Muslim world because of his insults to Islam,'' said Anjem Choudray, protest organizer. ''This honor will have ramifications here and across the world.''

The award, announced Saturday, was among the Queen Elizabeth II's Birthday Honors list, which is decided on by independent committees who vet nominations from the public and government.

Some analysts have expressed surprise his award was approved.

''There is an impression they really didn't consider the potential reaction,'' said Rosemary Hollis, director of research at London's Chatham House think tank. ''But there is a sense that showing too much sensitivity is to kowtow to radicals.''

--------

Associated Press writers David Stringer in London and Aijaz Hussain in Srinagar, India, contributed to this story.

Posted: 6/22/2007 10:05:25 AM EDT

[#28]

www.coxandforkum.com/

Posted: 6/22/2007 10:21:44 AM EDT

[#29]

Quoted:

Quoted:
What was the reason for the Knigthood? How did his writing that book bring honor to the UK?

Excellent question. I was wondering the same myself.
Every review of his writing that I have seen says his writing style sucks, and that his message is more of a personal agenda than anything else.

So why was he given a knighthood? If he deserves one, I sure as hell do!

That said, Pakistan can go screw itself for ever thinking that murder is a sensible response.

Found an answer here: BBC: Why Rushdie was Knighted

Not a satisfying answer (Fan lobbying).