LONDON: About 1,000 mosques in Britain have unanimously upheld the death sentence against Indian born British author Salman Rushdie for his controversial book, “The Satanic Verses”.
Participating in “the day of Muslim solidarity” organized by the association of Sunni Muslims on Friday, as part of a renewed campaign to have “The Satanic Verses” withdrawn form bookshelves here, the representatives from different mosques voted for the pro-Position that the death sentence should remain valid.
Rushdie was sentenced to death by late Ayatollah Khomeini of Tran in February for alleged blasphemy.
Aziz Chishti, general secretary of the association of Sunni Muslims is reported to have said, “Rushdie has insulted Islam, but the government is protecting him. If he were in an Islamic country the death sentence would have been carried out, but here we cannot take the law into our hands, so we have had to choose other forms of protest -demonstrations, petitioning MPs and so on.”
The association is campaigning for the extension of the blasphemy laws to include Islam and for Rushdie’s book to be withdrawn.
Interestingly, the day of Muslim solidarity has been condemned by the newly formed Islamic party of Britain, an outfit of convert Europeans.
Article extracted from this publication >> January 12, 1990
